Michael Henss

Buddhist Art in Tibet

New Insights

on Ancient Treasures

A Study of Paintings and Sculptures

from 8th to 18th century

Fabri Verlag

Ulm 2008

2

The presentations of this book – following an introduction as Part I –

comprises two revised and in extenso enlarged earlier essays:

Part II relates to the important Tibet exhibition and its catalogue: “TIBET -

Klöster öffnen ihre Schatzkammern”, shown at Museum Villa Hügel,

Essen (Germany), August 18th - November 26th, 2006; and Museum

für Ostasiatische Kunst, Berlin, February 21st - May 28th, 2007, pub-

lished under the same title, in German only, by Hirmer Verlag,

München 2006. The text was published in its first version as a review

in the Internet-online Journal www.asianart.com in late 2007.

Part III is a revised version of the review of “Buddhist Sculptures in

Tibet”, originally published in Oriental Art (Singapore), vol. XLIX,

no. 2, 2003, relating to the book by Ulrich von Schroeder, Buddhist

Sculptures in Tibet; 2 Vols, Visual Dharma Publications, Hong Kong 2001.

Copyright responsibility for all illustrations in this book

with the author Michael Henss, Zurich.

Cover photo:

Buddha Shakyamuni, gilt copper. Height ca 60cm. 15th century.

Shalu monastery, bSe-sgo-ma Lha-khang. Photo: M. Henss 1987

™ Fabri Verlag

Ulm/Donau 2008 ISBN 978-3-931997-34-2

3

Contents

I. Introduction: Western and Chinese research and publications on Buddhist sculpture and painting in Tibet and in Chinese collections since 1980 – Tibetan art in Chinese museums. 5

II. “Tibet - Monasteries Open Their Treasure rooms”

(Museum Villa Hügel, Esen/Germany, 2006). A review on the exhibition and its book:

The Lamdre Masters at Mindröl Ling – “Zhang Zhung”, Western Tibet and the Kashmir style – Pala Indian statues in Tibet – Tibet or India: the “Ford Tara” reconsidered – Early images of King Songtsen Gampo – The Diamond Seat Buddha and the Ma-habodhi temple – Indian palm leaf manuscripts and early Tibetan painting – Tibetan style “Silken paint-ings” 13th to 15th century – The “Yongle Bronzes” and Tibeto-Chinese sculpture of the early Ming period – The Yongle lotus mandalas – The art of Densa Thil – Tibetan medical thangkas – Ritual objects. A few notes on selected Essays: Foreign styles in Tibetan sculpture (Amy Heller) – Early manuscripts in Tibet (Sonam Wangden) – The Potala in the 7th/8th century (Paphen) – Tibet and the Silk Road (Marianne Yaldiz) – Icono-metry in Tibetan Buddhist art (Michael Henss). 18

III. “Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet”

by Ulrich von Schroeder (2001). A detailed survey and annotated review:

The Nepal-Tibet connection, 11th to 15th century – Pala Indian prototypes and influences – Tibetan metal images of the 7th to 9th century – The Tenth Karmapa and the Kashmir revival style – The earliest Buddhist narrative art in Tibet: the wooden carvings in the Lhasa Jokhang – The mystery of the Jowo Shakyamuni – Monumental statue cycles at Nyethang and Yemar –

4

The royal images in the Potala Palace and Jokhang temple – Buddhist sculpture from Zhang Zhung, in Western Tibet? – Kashmir and Guge – “Western Tibetan bronzes”, myth and reality. 114

IV. Addendum to “Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet”: The early sculptures in the Jokhang – Tibetan paintings of the 8th/9th century – Statues of King Songtsen Gampo – The “Aniko style” and the Jowo Shakyamuni – The Rietberg Goddess and the Tenth Karmapa – “tashi lima” statues at the Qing court – Kashmir and West-ern Tibet – Regional attribution and local schools via “technological styles”? – Indian Pala style and the An-dagu miniature stone carvings from Pagan. 155

V. Bibliography 178

VI. List of Illustrations 187

VII. Illustrations 197

5

Introduction

This book has been prepared with the intention of making available to a

wider readership two earlier exhibition and book reviews in a revised

and enlarged form with many more illustrations. This format also allows

for greater exploration of some of these essential subjects, that were

raised by the presented material and by its interpretation. By focussing

on sculptures and painting it will provide the reader with some updated

insights of our current knowledge on the ancient cultural relics in pre-

sent-day Tibet and thus is supposed to offer more than just a report on

two specific publications.

The review article on the German exhibition and its book Tibet – Mon-

asteries Open Their Treasure Rooms, arguably the most significant pres-

entation of Buddhist art from Tibet ever shown in the West, initially was

written for The Tibet Journal (where it will be soon published in the

original unrevised edition), an academic magazine on Tibetan studies

edited in Dharamsala, India. This periodical, while it has a high aca-

demic reputation, does not, however, reach many more than the inner

circle of Tibetologists and their related institutions, and hardly all other,

who are particularly interested in the art of the Himalayas. This review

was also presented online in late 2007 (www.asianart.com) with some

thirty illustrations – but again, likely will be read only by those readers

who know and use this internet journal. A more comprehensive version

has therefore been requested, all the more since this exhibition pre-

sented many important cultural relics, which only have been on public

display in the Lhasa Tibet Museum or in the Potala Palace, and in some

monasteries often visited by Tibetan, Chinese and foreign pilgrims and

travellers.

It has also been suggested that a more detailed discussion of the trea-

sures shown at the German Tibet exhibition in the Villa Hügel Museum,

Essen, and in the Museum for Asian Art, Berlin, will be particularly

appreciated by the non-German readers of the 664 pages catalogue-

handbook, of which no English edition exists.

6

When ORIENTAL ART (Singapore) had published my review on Ul-

rich von Schroeder’s Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet (2001) in 2003, it be-

came clear that this once very reputated scholarly Asian art journal did

no longer reach the majority of the experts and connoisseurs in the field,

and it was hardly known to the special afficionados and collectors of Ti-

betan Buddhist art. In view of the fundamental importance of this ex-

tremely useful reference work, which will be of value for decades to

come, a republication cum ADDENDUM may help to provide further

assistance and insight.

Since my earlier survey on the cultural monuments in present-day Tibet

was published (in German: Tibet. Die Kulturdenkmäler. Zürich 1981)

soon after foreign visitors had been allowed to visit Lhasa and beyond

for the first time (1980), several years passed by before some Western

and Chinese books or major articles documented in greater detail the

cultural relics in the Central Regions of Ü and Tsang provinces (dbUs

and gTsang).

First among the local archaeologists and art historians in Lhasa to ex-

plore and publish Tibetan art and architecture was Sonam Wangdü

(bSod nams dbang ‘dus, see the bibliography – also for other authors

and publications – in my forthcoming The Cultural Monuments of Ti-

bet. The Central Regions), whose various books and articles from the

1980s and early 1990s were published in Tibetan and Chinese only. – A

few years after the then still existing monasteries and palaces had re-

opened their doors for pilgrims and foreign visitors a first exhibition of

precious painted scrolls from the Potala Palace was presented to the

public in the Summer Palace of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, accompa-

nied by a well illustrated book, Xizang Thangka (Beijing 1985 and

2005). A profusely illustrated Chinese pictorial encyclopedia “Zang

Chuan Fojiao Yishu” (Tianjin 1987) and its English translation Buddhist

Art of the Tibetan Plateau (Hongkong 1988) compiled by Liu Lizhong

provided a first more comprehensive visual survey on monasteries and

monuments. Roberts Vitali’s groundbreaking Early Temples of Central

Tibet (London 1990) followed as the first modern scholarly book in a

7

Western language based on field studies and extensively on Tibetan text

sources. Vitali documented such hitherto unseen rareties as the earliest

monumental image groups still to exist at ‘On ke ru Lha khang (8th and

9th century) or the unique late 11th century wall-paintings at Drathang,

both not far from Samye monastery. Other chapters are dedicated to the

early eastern section of the Lhasa Jokhang, the surviving 11th century

statuary at Yemar to the South of Gyantse, the extensive mural cycles at

Shalu, which date to the 11th through 14th century, and the Riwoche

Kumbum stupa with its painted decorations in the remote western part

of southern Tibet, where it was constructed by the multi-talented engi-

neer-mahasiddha Thangtong Gyalpo in 1449-1456.

In the tradition of Guiseppe Tucci the two Italian scholars Erberto Lo

Bue and Franco Ricca dedicated their research to the Gyantse monu-

ments. The books written by these authors, Gyantse Revisited (Firenze

1990), and The Great Stupa of Gyantse (London 1993), have become

essential reference works, particularly on the “Kumbum”, since then. A

useful addition to this subject with many more high-quality plates of the

paintings and statues is The Kumbum of Gyantse Palcho Monastery in

Tibet by Xiong Wenbin (Chengdu 2001), a leading Chinese Tibetologist-

art historian at the China Tibetology Research Center in Beijing.

Regettably the essential Archaeological Studies on Monuments of

Tibetan Buddhism (Zang Zhuan Fojiao Siyuan Kaogu, Beijing 1996)

written by Su Bai, a renowned Han-Chinese specialist on Tibetan art,

have been published only in Chinese. Illustrated by numerous plans and

a number of historical photographs this summa of Su Bai’s Tibetan re-

search in art and architecture comprises chapters on the Lhasa Jokhang

and Ramoche, Drepung and Sera, the Gyantse Kumbum, Narthang,

some monuments in the Lhoka and Shigatse areas, the temples at Tho-

ling and Tsaparang, manuscript collections in the Potala and at Sakya

monastery, as well as chapters on Tibetan style paintings along the Silk

Road such as Zhangye, Wuwei, Yulin, Dunhuang and in Xixia, or on

Yuan dynasty buildings and sculptures like the giant Tibetan Baita stupa

8

in Beijing (1271-78), or Juyong Guan gate and its relief carvings, which

is located further to the North (1342-45). – Other Chinese scholars, in-

cluding Huo Wei and Li Yongxian, both from Sichuan University,

Chengdu, have focussed their rsearch on prehistoric petroglyphs (Art of

Tibetan Rock Paintings, Xizang Yanhua Yishu. Chengdu 1994), to the

tombs of early Tibetan kings (Research on the Burial Systems in Ancient

Tibet. Xizang Gudai Muzang Zhi Du Yanjiu. Chengdu 1995), or to sPu

rgyel dynasty rock carvings in the eastern Tibetan cultural areas of Si-

chuan province. Other experts like Xu Xinguo, of the Qinghai Institute

of Cultural Relics and Archaeology in Xining, supervised and published

burial treasures from excavations in the Tibetan-Han Chinese border-

lands in northern Tibet.

Among the younger generation of the Beijing-based Tibetan art histori-

ans, to name a few in this selective survey of those conducting research

on cultural relics in the TAR, Xie Jisheng (Capital Normal University,

Beijing) has published widely on Tibeto-Chinese and Sino-Tibetan art,

mainly from Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and adjacent areas. Zhang Ya-

sha’s (Central University for Nationalities, Beijing) investigations on the

Yemar sculptures and on the wall-paintings at Drathang presented a re-

markable interpretation from a Chinese perspective, though potentially

challenged in the light of Western publications (Vitali, Rhie, Heller,

Henss).

Püntsok Namgyal (Phun tshogs rNam rgyal), formerly Deputy Director

of the Cultural Relics Bureau in Lhasa, is the author of three well-

illustrated books with Chinese and English text introductions on the Ti-

betan Buddhist Monastery Bkra sis lhum po (Beijing 1998), nTho ling

Monastery (Beijing 2001), and on The Potala Palace (Beijing 2002). The

only more comprehensive documentation on the Potala Palace with 380

illustrations, many excellent plans and details about the large scale reno-

vation in 1989-94 was published in Chinese, Xizang Budala Gong (The

Potala Palace in Tibet, 2 vols., Beijing 1996), yet does not appear to have

come to the knowledge of Western readers. Two more Potala books

from China have proved useful for further studies: Gems of the Potala

9

Palace (Budala Gong Mibao, Beijing 1999), a large album with 375 ex-

cellent plates and informative captions, and A Mirror of the Murals in

the Potala (Budala Gong Bihua Yuan Liu, Beijing 2000) with 200 illus-

trations of the wall-paintings from mid-17th to early 19th century and a

readable trilingual text. While only part of the Potala paintings are acces-

sible to the public (and now even less than before), a systematic and

comprehensive documentation in text and illustration would be needed,

additional to the welldone photographic survey mentioned above. – A

recently published album, “The Celestial Palace of the Gods of Tantric

Vajra Yana” (Beijing 2004) with excellent reproductions of 158 man-

dala paintings in the Potala Palace collection has hardly become known

to Western scholars. It comprises two sets of 45 and 65 mandalas

painted at the time of the Eighth Dalai Lama (1758-1804) by the same

workshop around 1800, and additional 48 mandalas mostly of the

Nyingmapa tradition and dating to the 19th century.

Photographic albums were published in Beijing on Tashilhünpo Monas-

tery, edited by Meng Zi and Liao Pin (1993), Sera Thekchen Ling

(1995), and Zhaibung Monastery (Drepung; 1999), with partly “popular”

or questionably “scholarly” texts. A well-researched monograph on

Nechung monastery by Franco Ricca, Il Tempio oracolare di gNas

chung, may not have found sufficient readers due to its exclusive Italian

language publication (Torino 1999). Monographic studies by the same

author do exist for books on Shalu monastery (in collaboration with

Lionel Fournier) and on the Gyantse Tsuglagkhang, but have not been

published yet. A fine book with masterful photographs of the extraordi-

nary tantric Dzogchen wall-paintings in the small Lu khang sanctuary on

the Naga King’s Lake (kLu rGyal po mtsho) lake island behind the Po-

tala by Ian Baker and Thomas Laird, The Dalai Lama’s Secret Temple

(London 2000), makes these painted treasures of the 18th century – now

in danger of damage and decay and not accessible for the public – lite-

rally, or rather visually, more impressive than when standing in front of

the original murals.

10

The cultural relics in Western Tibet were investigated for the first time

after Guiseppe Tucci’s visit in 1935 and documented in great detail by

an archaeological team from Lhasa in 1985. Comprehensive excavations

were carried out on the 15th and 16th century temples and vast palace

remains at Tsaparang, now mostly known as “Guge”, and published in

The Site of the Ancient Guge Kingdom, 2 vols., Beijing 1991 (in Chi-

nese, with many illustrations and plans). After the excavations and con-

servation work at the grand “Mandala temple” (brGya rtsa) at Tholing in

1997-99 Püntsok Namgyal published the newly discovered magnificent

clay sculptures and wall-paintings that date from the 11th century and

later periods not only in the abovementioned Tholing book (2001), but

also together with a survey on Tsaparang, the Dungkar and Phiyang

cave paintings and some further sites in Guge with precise plans in a

Chinese language book (with English summary): Rescue Report and

Conservation Projects on Ali’s Cultural Heritages in Xizang Autono-

mous Region (Beijing, Science Press, 2002). Most of the 11th or 12th cen-

tury Kashmir style paintings in the Dung dkar caves northeast of Tho-

ling have been reproduced in a simple picture album together with a

short trilingual text; Donggar Cave Murals in Ngari Prefecture, Tibet,

China (Beijing 1998).

Three German language books, conceived as popular photographic and

textual introductions to the previously accessible sites at Tsaparang and

Tholing, are Tsaparang – Tibets grosses Geheimnis by Jürgen Aschoff

(Text) and Helfried Weyer (Freiburg 1987), and the later more scholarly

work by Jürgen Aschoff: Tsaparang – Königsstadt in Westtibet. Die

vollständigen Berichte des Jesuitenpaters António de Andrade und eine

Beschreibung vom heutigen Zustand der Klöster (Neufahrn 1989, 2nd

edition Ulm 1997), and Tibet – Der Weisse Tempel von Tholing by

Ewald Hein and Günther Boelmann (Ratingen 1994). A profusely illus-

trated survey on the sculptural and painted treasures in ancient Gu ge,

with some Chinese and English text, was edited by Huo Wei and Li

Yongxian: The Buddhist Art in Western Tibet (Chengdu 2001). Roberto

Vitali’s Records of Tho ling, a literary and visual reconstruction of the

“Mother” monastery in Guge (Dharamsala 1999), has become the most

11

important source book for the principal monuments at Tholing and for

the entire history of ancient Western Tibet.

Less well known, until Andreas Gruschke’s four handbooks on Amdo

and Kham became available, were the still surviving, in many cases, the

recently reconstructed cultural monuments and relics in Eastern Tibet,

the only more systematic reference works on these regions ever pub-

lished, though they focuss more on monastic buildings and their history

than on images: The Cultural Monuments of Tibet’s Outer Provinces:

AMDO. 2 vols (The Qinghai Part of Amdo, and The Gansu and Si-

chuan Parts of Amdo). Bangkok 2001, and KHAM. 2 vols. (The TAR

Part of Kham, and the Qinghai Part of Kham). Bangkok 2004 (see M.

Henss, Tibet Journal 2006).

While John Vincent Bellezza’s pioneering research on the prehistoric

and early historic remains and artefacts “beyond Buddhist art” in the

Changtang plains may not belong exactly to this annotated selection of

major field studies and related publications of Buddhist imagery pre-

served in Tibet, his surveys have contributed considerably in a “schol-

arly no-man’s land” to our knowledge about the earliest cultural relics of

Tibetan civilization. Though largely illustrated by art objects in Western

collections and conceived as a general history of the arts in the entire

Tibetan realm Amy Heller’s Tibetan Art (Milano 1999), published five

years after Anne Chayet’s substantial, but differently organised “Art et

Archaeologie du Tibet” with special focus on early archaeological sites

and related Chinese research (Paris 1994), has incorporated many re-

search details on the cultural relics in Tibet as they were understood at

the time.

Of special importance are the five volumes of Precious Deposits. His-

torical Relics of Tibet, China (Baozang Zhongguo Xizang Lishi Wenwu.

Beijing 2000), which include a total of 1252 exquisite colour photo-

graphs of 714 objects from all fields of Tibetan art dating from pre-

history to the 20th century, which remain preserved in the TAR, many of

them never published elsewhere. This extraordinary documentation will

no doubt remain a most important reference work for many more dis-

12

coveries and studies to follow. While the connaissance of Tibetan art

and related academic research has been until the 1980s almost exclu-

sively the domaine of European and American experts, Chinese studies

and publications in this field did almost not exist or were at least hardly

available in the West. When I was invited in 1995 to lecture at the Palace

Museum and at the Chinese Tibetology Research Center in Beijing,

there were only very few Tibetan art researchers such as Wang Jiapeng,

Luo Wenhua or Xiong Wenbin, whereas some other pioneering Tibe-

tologists of the older generation as for example Su Bai or Wang Yao had

been already retired. This has changed in a very positive and stimulating

way especially thanks to scholars like Huo Wei from Sichuan University

in Chengdu, and Xie Jisheng, now Capital Normal University, Beijing,

who both were organising the first Beijing International Conference on

Tibetan Archaeology and Art in 2002. The second and third of these

“Beijing Conferences” in 2004 and 2006 made the new open door

policy increasingly successful and attractive for more participants from

China, including the TAR and Qinghai, and abroad. The papers (63 in

2006) on archaeology and architecture, painting and sculpture, textiles

and metalwork, ritual and secular art, many of them on Tibeto-Chinese

and Sino-Tibetan border areas, were given and afterwards published in

Chinese or English and have become useful, however not easily obtai-

nable documentary works for latest discoveries and new insights in

China and the West. The two-volumes Proceedings of the 2006 confer-

ence are supposed to be published in late 2008.

In this context of research and publishing greater attention must be

given in the near future to m u s e u m s i n C h i n a with major hol-

dings of – mostly inaccessible – Tibetan art from Tibet or made in

China. The catalogue of the T i b e t M u s e u m in Lhasa (2001),

which was opened in 1999 as the first public institution in the TAR pre-

senting Tibet’s cultural heritage from prehistoric to modern age, illus-

trates 45 Tibetan statues, 41 painted scrolls and 6 fabric images mostly

dating to the 12th through 18th centuries. The captions don’t give any

provenance to the individual items and are especially with regard to

chronology disputable. Another 33 sculptures and 26 thangkas of the

13

Lhasa museum were published in the same year in a Beijing exhibition

catalogue(see Jinse Baozang 2001), among them a 63 large standing

Kashmir style Shakyamuni from Western Tibet of the ca. 11th century

and an extraordinary fine painted Kalachakra mandala dating to the

early 15th century. Most of this museum’s objects had been formerly

stored in the Potala and Norbulingka Palaces, where a few were pre-

sented in small showrooms to the visitors. Some other exhibits of great

historical importance came from the principal monasteries around Lhasa

to be brought under government custody after 1959 such as the 50 me-

tres long richly illustrated “Tsurphu Scroll” painted in the imperial

workshops at Nanjing in 1407/1408 and given to the Fifth Karmapa,

two fabric images in silk embroidery and kesi technique of the Sera

founder Jamchen Chöje (‘Byams chen Chos rje) manufactured at the

Ming court around 1435 and sent to his monastery (Tibet Museum

2001, ill. p.41-43), or a complete luxury armour suit made for the Qian-

long emperor and presented in 1757 to Ganden, where it was installed

in front of Tsongkhapa’s reliquiary stupa until 1966.

Practically all Tibetan style statues and paintings in the P a l a c e M u-

s e u m, Beijing, which once either were brought by Tibetan hierarchs to

the imperial court or manufactured there as “Tibeto-Chinese” art mainly

in the 18th century, are not on display and usually not accessible to for-

eign and even to Chinese scholars. They were published however in

China in several books with excellent plates and some Chinese text, the

captions in English, with mostly precise data and correct attributions.

217 fine Buddhist images from Kashmir, Pala-India, Nepal, Tibet, and

from the imperial ateliers in China of the 8th through 18th centuries, clas-

sified after iconography and partly regional provenance,have been com-

piled by Wang Jiaping “Iconography and Styles. Tibetan Statues in the

Palace Museum” (2 vols., 2002), while alltogether 260 metal sculptures

of this museum are documented in chronological order by the same au-

thor in “Tibetan Buddhist Statues in the Qing Palace” (2003). Also in

the Complete Collection of Treasures in the Qing Palace series were

published 263 Tibetan painted scrolls: “Thangka. Buddhist Paintings of

Tibet in the Qing Palace” (Wang Jiaping; 2003).

14

Both are principal reference books of Tibetan art in China, to which

another very informative book (in Chinese and English) must be added

to this survey, compiled by the same academic author-in-charge: “Cul-

tural Relics of Tibetan Buddhism collected in the Qing Palace” (1992

and 1998). It is so far the only survey on the highly important temples of

esoteric Buddhism and their furnishings in the Forbidden City, which

are unfortunately not open, with some rare exceptions, even to specifi-

cally interested visitors. The book however presents many illustrations

of the interior settings, wall-paintings, thangkas, statues and ritual ob-

jects not published elsewhere. –

Next to the historically formed ensemble of Tibetan and Tibet-Chinese

Buddhist art and their shrines in the Imperial City comes another trea-

sure-house in this field, the “Lama Temple” Y o n g h e g o n g , which

has survived largely undamaged the iconoclasm during the “Cultural

Revolution”. “Palace of Harmony”, a picture album with 465 illustra-

tions (Beijing 1995), is the only more comprehensive modern book after

Ferdinand D.Lessing’s highly essential but sparsely illustrated “Icono-

graphy” of this “Lamaist Cathedral” (Yung ho kung. Stockholm 1942; a

second volume was never published), of which a new revised Sino-

Swedish co-edition will be published in the near future. Totally 176

painted scrolls of the late 18th and 19th century, with very few exceptions

all executed in the imperial ateliers, are reproduced in “The Treasured

Thangkas on Yonghegong Palace” (Chinese and English text; Beijing

1994, and, with a partly different selection, 1998, and as “Beautiful

Tangka Paintings in Yonghegong” in 2002) though accompanied by

brief captions only. This considerable fundus of later Tibetan style

paintings at the Qing Court has so far hardly been utilized, at least out-

side China, for scholarly research.

In a similar way were published 121 “Buddhist Statues in Yonghegong”

(Beijing 2002), of which twenty-five images are of Tibetan or Kashmi-

rian origin.

Although the buildings in the Tibeto-Chinese architectural style are still

there, a great deal of the original 18th century inventory in the temples at

15

the former imperial summer residence at C h e n g d e (Bishushan

Zhuang, 1703-1792) was looted in the 19th and early 20th century. What

has been left from those rich treasures of Tibetan style Buddhist art

once produced at the Court under the Qianlong emperor, given from

the imperial collections or by Mongolian chieftains, is usually not on

display, instead well documented for about 90 items in a Taiwanese ex-

hibition catalogue, “Buddhist Art from Rehol. Tibetan Buddhist Images

and Ritual Objects from the Qing Dynasty Summer Palace at Chengde”,

edited by Hung Shih Chang and Jessica Hsu (Taipei 1999). About one

third of these images and objects can be also found in a beautiful picture

album with knowledgeable text chapters in Chinese and English: “The

Qing Emperors and the Chengde Mountain Resort”, edited by the Cul-

tural Relic Bureau of Chengde (Beijing 2003).

The by far richest depot of Tibetan images in China is the new Beijing

C a p i t a l M u s e u m (opened in 2006) with about 10’000 Tibetan

and Tibeto-Chinese statues, all brought to Beijing during the “Cultural

Revolution” in 1966-1976, of which less than a hundred are on display.

A selection of 187 pieces including Nepal, Kashmir and Pala-India was

published in “Buddhist Statues. Gems of Beijing Cultural Relics Series”,

edited by Han Yong and Huang Chunhe (Beijing Wenwu Jingcui Daxi,

2001). Until today the major part of this huge collection is still unpacked

and even largely unknown to the curator-in-charge, Huang Chunhe, co-

author of the above publication. The hidden treasures of the Capital

Museum are no doubt a most promising and challenging

reservoir for the study of Tibetan art in the years to come (see also

Selected Works of Ancient Buddhist Statues 2005).

More unseen cultural relics of Tibet, all brought to China after 1959 or

1966, are kept in the N a t i o n a l M u s e u m o f C h i n a at

Tiananmen Square, formerly the “Museum of Chinese History”, which

is now under complete reconstruction until circa 2010. 300 Tibetan style

statues of this “storage collection” were impressively published in two

large volumes: “Tibetan Buddhist Gilt Images in China” (Zhongguo

Zangchuan Fojiao Jintong, 2001), with detail photos of Tibetan inscrip-

16

tions and quite informative Chinese texts, all organised in iconographic

groups. Another 193 “unknown” images of this museum have been se-

lected for a recent Chinese text catalogue with 510 superb photos from

different views of each figure: “Masterpieces of Buddhist Sculpture” (Fo

Zaoxiang Yishu Jingcui, 2006). – A newly established museum collec-

tion is scheduled to open its doors in the C h i n a T i b e t o l o g y

R e s e a r c h C e n t e r , Beijing, toward the end of 2008.

This short introductionary survey on present research and recent publi-

cations in the field of Tibetan art in China and the West, and on some

principal institutions preserving and displaying the sacred images of Ti-

bet, would be incomplete if not last, but not least at all the R u b i n M

u s e u m o f A r t (RMA) in New York would be mentioned here.

With its now 2000 Tibetan and related artefacts of all categories, Hima-

layan areas and periods, many of them of first importance and quality,

its numerous publications and various research activities the RMA be-

came soon after its opening in 2004 the principal center for the art and

culture of the Tibetan realm.

Closely affiliated with the RMA and actually originating from this insti-

tution (before the present museum was physically existing) is the most

useful Himalayan Art Website directed by Jeff Watt, a comprehensive

visual database and a virtual museum of Himalayan art with nearly

20’000 images of paintings, sculptures, ritual and secular objects from

over 30 public and 60 private collections worldwide, a unique source for

the study of Tibetan and related arts! (www.himalayanart.org). The same

applies for the “Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center”, an invaluable tex-

tual database under the academic supervision of Gene Smith, dedicated

as well to promoting research on the Tibetan cultural heritage by making

its literary tradition widely available in digitalised form (www.tbrc.org).

Important painted and sculptural treasures in Tibet still await explora-

tion, in places such as Tashi Lhünpo or Sakya due to restrictions of ac-

cess and investigation. Detailed and richly illustrated monographic pub-

lications would be needed for the Potala Palace, for Samye and Tashi

Lhünpo, Sakya and Shalu, for Kumbum monastery and Labrang Tashi-

17

kyil, for the grand wall-painting cycles or for the “unknown” treasures

of Tibetan ritual art. Other sites and relics have not yet received proper

attention such as the surviving original sections of the 13th century man-

dala paintings and the enormous quantity of superb metal images and

manuscripts at Sakya, the “image galleries” with hundreds of ancient

statues at Tashi Lhünpo, the thus far apparently unnoticed earliest Chi-

nese style wall-paintings of the foundation period at Drepung, the fine

16th century siddha paintings at Yamdrog Talung, the unique and well-

preserved murals at Jonang Püntsoling, which date to the early 17th cen-

tury, or the stylistically so advanced 15th century paintings at Gongkar

Chöde. In a way, these are all hidden treasures of the best that has been

produced in the past, and that even now remain preserved for the fu-

ture.

My own forthcoming Cultural Monuments of Tibet (The Central Re-

gions) is intented to fill some gaps after many years of research in Tibet

and at home. A few results of this work too, and perhaps a few more

questions that have arisen from these studies also appeared to be useful

for this “review book”, which would not have been realised without the

great interest and support of my publisher and friend Jürgen Aschoff.

And to all those, who contributed to these “new insights on ancient

treasures” in Tibet.

Zürich, Oktober 2008

Michael Henss

For proofreading and linguistic corrections of two chapters in this book

I would like to thank Ian Alsop and Edwin Borman.

M. H.

18

TIBET

”Monasteries Open

Their Treasure Rooms”

A review on the exhibition and its book 1

As the title of this exceptional presentation of Tibetan art announces,

monasteries and other institutions like the Potala and the Norbulingka

palaces in Lhasa have opened their doors – in many cases for the first

time – and sent their treasures abroad, together with cultural relics now

preserved in the Tibet Museum at Lhasa, which was established as the

first museum in Tibet (Tibetan Autonomous Region, TAR) only six

years ago2.

Organised by the “Kulturstiftung Ruhr” (Cultural Foundation of Ruhr

District) in the city of Essen, a leading privately sponsored cultural insti-

tution in Germany for over 40 years known for major exhibitions of

Western and non-European art, in cooperation with the Administrative

Bureau of Cultural Relics of the TAR in Lhasa, this pioneering enter-

prise has turned out to be a milestone in presenting Tibetan art on a

high level, comparable in quantity and quality with other exhibition

landmarks such as “Wisdom and Compassion” in San Francisco, New

York, London, Bonn, Barcelona, Japan, and Taipei (1991-1998), and the

1 Museum Villa Hügel, Essen, Germany, August 18 – November 26, 2006; Museum for

East Asian Art, Berlin, February 21 - May 28, 2007. Catalogue publication (in German

only): TIBET – Klöster öffnen ihre Schatzkammern, edited by Jeong-hee Lee-Kalisch,

664 p., 438 colour and 17 b/w-illustrations, Hirmer Verlag München 2006

2 See M.Henss, The New Tibet Museum in Lhasa. In: Orientations, Hongkong, Febru-

ary 2000, p. 62-65

19

“Himalayas – An Aesthetic Adventure” in Chicago and Washington

(2003).3

The scholarly and administrative organisation of the German exhibition,

including all negotations with the Tibetan and Chinese authorities in

Lhasa and Beijing, was in the hands of a team led by Professor Jeong-

hee Lee-Kalisch, chair of the Institute for East-Asian Art History at Ber-

lin University (FU), which curated exhibitions on Chinese art (under the

leadership of Prof. Roger Goepper) and on Korean art in 1995 and

1999.

The exhibition under review had an American forerunner quite recently:

“Tibet - Treasures from the Roof of the World”, which was organised

by the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in California in 2003 and succes-

sively shown by the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the Rubin

Museum of Art in New York, and by the Asian Art Museum in San

Francisco. Tibetan art treasures from the TAR had been presented for

the first time in Europe in two small exhibitions organised by the Musée

National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris in 1987 and by the Rinascente de-

partment store in Milano in 1994, where four and eight objects respec-

tively of the current German exhibition were shown.4 While the Bowers

exhibition was exclusively based on loans from public institutions in

Lhasa like the Tibet Museum (fig. 1) and the Potala and Norbulingka

Palaces, Essen’s Villa Hügel Museum had the privilege of presenting for

the first time some 25 religious works of art (11 catalogue entries) from

five monasteries in Tibet, where they are still on display and ritually

used. Great masterpieces, 14 important cultural relics, came only from 3 See M.Rhie/R.Thurman, Wisdom and Compassion. The Sacred Art of Tibet. New

York 1991 and 1996 (German ed. 1996); P.Pal (Ed.), Himalayas. An Aesthetic Adven-

ture. Chicago and Berkeley 2003.

4 See The Bowers Museum of Cultural Art (Ed.): Tibet – Treasures from the Roof of

the World. Santa Ana 2003, and a review by Terese Tse Bartholomew in: Orientations,

October 2003, p.65-67. Trésors du Tibet. Région Autonome du Tibet, Chine. Paris

1987; Tesori del Tibet. Oggeti d’arte dai Monasteri di Lhasa. Milano 1994 (exhibits

from public institutions in Lhasa; text by E. Lo Bue).

20

two of these five monasteries, Mindröl Ling and Shalu. If one follows

the comments of the German organisers the monastic institutions of

Mindröl Ling, Gyantse, Shalu, Tashi Lhünpo and Sakya have been very

cooperative and even proud to have some of their treasures shown in

the far West. However one cannot overlook some discrepancy between

the proud title of the exhibition (“Monasteries Open Their Treasure

Rooms”) and the fact that most of the objects are owned by museums

(Tibet Museum, Potala Palace, Norbulingka Palace, Yarlung Museum)

rather than monasteries.

Seven monastic institutions did not open their doors to give loans

abroad (Jokhang, Sera, Drepung, Nyethang, Yumbu Lakhar, Gongkar

Chöde, Samye). Three very important cultural relics never seen before

by foreigners came on loan from the Yarlung Museum at Tsethang,

which has not been open to visitors during the last years. Not less than

45 paintings, statues, and ritual instruments are shown from the Potala

Palace collection, another 18 objects are from the Norbulingka property;

while 51 items were given by the Tibet Museum. As claimed in the cata-

logue the organisers did, however, “with respect to the believers”, not

request works of art which are closely associated with the daily ritual

praxis: A statement made maybe for reasons of prestige to which one

may add that those items, even if requested, would not have been given

on loan anyway. Regrettably all circa 60 objects from the Tibet Museum

and from the Norbulingka Palace were given abroad without details

about the former provenance, which at least in most cases is certainly

known to the cultural relics authorities in Lhasa. And one also wonders

where the magnificent brocade banner with the Yongle reign mark (no.

53 in the catalogue), one of the highlights in the exhibition, had been

preserved previously.

Of the total of 138 objects, 33 were never seen before except by a few

local experts, either in the original object or via publication. About 42

items, which is nearly one third of the whole exhibition, where never

published before, and a total of 112 exhibits are shown for the first time

outside China. Most of the loans, 85 pieces, cannot even be seen at their

21

proper place in Tibet! These are impressive figures, and the inclusion of

these rare and inaccessible objects is a credit to the considerate and suc-

cessful selection policy of the Germans. The presence of these rare ob-

jects provide a contrast with the Bowers Museum exhibition, where the

selection was apparently more determined by what had been offered by

the Lhasa authorities.

The Essen exhibition, which was seen by 196,000 visitors before it

moved to Berlin, has been clearly defined as an art exhibition with focus

on aesthetic quality and art historical importance. The works of art were

not just presented as an assembly of isolated aesthetic highlights; instead

they were quite logically arranged within their historical and icono-

graphical context.

The objects in the exhibition cover fifteen centuries, from a Chinese gilt

bronze Shakyamuni statuette dated to 473 and brought at an unknown

period to the Potala Palace to the Medicine thangka copies of the 1920s

now kept in the Lhasa Museum. Thus this art historical survey of Tibet

ends sometime before 1950 and does not include the period and person

of the 14th Dalai Lama. This has been criticized by many visitors to the

exhibition, whose idea and image of Tibet are essentially determined by

this foremost and highly appreciated Tibetan representative of our days.

For obvious reasons the devastations of countless historical relics during

the so-called “Cultural Revolution” in the whole of China and Tibet

between 1966 and 1976 were not documented in Essen and Berlin, but

are still very tragically in mind, not only in the West. And those eminent

losses cannot be covered by all the exhibited treasures, which fortu-

nately have survived, for the religious benefit, daily use, study, and aes-

thetic pleasure of Tibetans in Tibet, in the diaspora, and abroad. That an

exhibition of Tibetan cultural relics from present-day China shown in

the West will focus on "Buddhist Art and Religion" alone is self-

explaining. And self-restriction in this sense has been practised in Essen

and in Lhasa, even at the Villa Hügel vernissage, when in an informal

and discrete ambiance no official speeches and statements were given

and the officials from Lhasa and Beijing were hardly seen. When this

22

exhibition, which has been under the patronage of the Chinese Prime

Minister Hu Jintao and of the German Federal President Horst Köhler,

was opened in its second venue on February 20, 2007, in the Museum

for Asian Art at Berlin (director Prof. Willibald Veit and Dr. Herbert

Butz for the East Asian department) in a more official way, welcome

addresses were given by the President of the German House of Parlia-

ment, Norbert Lammert, by China’s ambassor Ma Canrong, and by

Nyima Tsering, director of the Administrative Bureau of Cultural Relics

of the TAR in Lhasa.

The homemade German texts in the show and in the catalogue-

handbook get along without any overall guidelines except those of aca-

demic relevance and correctness toward the individual object and its cul-

tural context. Such insight and discipline are not self-evident here and

there and may give rise to criticism on both sides. The German organi-

sers, one may argue, had no other choice in order to get this exhibition

done. Yet they were intelligent enough to pay proper respect to the

needs and feasibilities of the generous lenders and to get a maximum

back. According to his own words the director of the Villa Hügel Cul-

tural Foundation, Prof. Paul Vogt, was also well aware of the eventual

political aspects and related discussions in this regard. But he noted:

“Nevertheless Tibetans in exile supported actively the planning and

preparations of this exhibition.

Other came to pay their respect to these ritual images and were pleased

to see such significant visual manifestations of their faith, which have

been sent from Tibetan monasteries or institutions, and not from the

museums in the West. I am convinced that the public presentation of

these religious objects and the scientific study and publication of Tibet’s

cultural heritage will contribute to their preservation and safeguarding”.

And the German Federal President justified his patronage with similar

arguments: "This exhibition does not claim to present the history of Ti-

bet until our days, however it shows religious works of art – often still in

active ritual use – owned by public institutions and by monasteries. Thus

they are part of a living culture and of the identity of the Tibetan people.

23

The exhibition gives a chance for a cultural and spiritual mission. We

believe that the presentation of Tibet’s cultural relics is also a contribu-

tion to emphasize and to support the autonomy of Tibet”.

In view of the different thematic categories the selection is well

balanced between images and non-figural items, with 59 statues from

miniature to life-size, 25 thangka paintings and six fabric images (kesi,

silk embroidery), some 54 ritual objects, four sacred books, and twelve

historical and other secular objects.

It was not the intention of this exhibition to illustrate and document the

cultural history of Tibet or to give a visual introduction to the “Land of

Snows”. Yet many chapters of Tibet’s religious and cultural history are

covered by the five sections of the exhibition plan anyway.

The visitor – and the reader of the heavy (over 4 kg!) catalogue hand-

book – begins his kora ("bsko ra"; ritual circumambulation) in front of

the early Indian and Tibetan Lamdre (lam ‘bras) lineage masters of the

Sakyapa tradition, an at least most impressive “path and result” and no

doubt a brilliant mental and highly eyecatching introduction into the

visual dharma of Tibet. The second part, like all the other sections deco-

rated in a colour scheme featuring one of the symbolic colours of the

Five Buddha Families or of the five elements, is dedicated to the three-

fold world of the dharma – body, speech, and mind: to the principal dei-

ties and teachers, the sacred scriptures, and to the stupa, the aniconic

symbol of the Awakened One. The third part follows at the center of

the exhibition: the mandalas, meditational emblems of microcosm and

macrocosm, and then the fourth, a large section comprising a rather

broad and not always convincing entity of “Rulers and Monasteries”

with images of religious (and secular) sovereigns and their emblemata,

various ritual implements and altar furnishings, which one would have

prefered to see, however, in a more condensed and systematic context

of a “temple iconology”. The last section of the exhibition - dedicated to

Tibetan medicine - appears more like a rather arbitrary appendix (of an

24

en-vogue subject) rather than an essential chapter of the fivefold path to

enlightenment on the exhibition's ambitious path of circumambulation.

The aesthetic presentation in the huge, over a hundred years old buil-

ding, once the residence of the famous Krupp family, a leading indus-

trial “institution” in 20th century Germany, was very impressive. The

spacious halls were skilfully transformed into several compartments with

the objects shown in a decent setting of tranquilizing colours and con-

centrated light. In reasonable balance with the overall design additional

texts provide sufficient information for the exhibits, much to the benefit

of the visitor, who in other cases like the current exhibition on “The

Dalai Lamas” in Zürich (Ethnographic Museum) and Rotterdam (World

Museum) is solely and “compulsorily” guided around by audiophones.

The high standard of the selection could not be realised in every field,

presumably due to restrictions of the lenders of this exhibition. This is

specifically evident for the painted Mandalas, which are represented only

on a low quality level (nos. 68, 72, 73, 78), although two exceptional

15th century Kalacakra Mandalas are kept in the Potala Palace and in

the Lhasa Museum. Only a few other items might be considered dispen-

sable, such as the paintings nos. 43, 46 and 58, or the statues nos. 30, 51,

52 and 66 along with some ritual objects such as nos. 90, 91, 93 and 101

did not match the excellent overall quality level of this exhibition.

In the following annotations I will mainly focus on those works of art,

which by their outstanding artistic quality, their specific iconographic in-

terest, or by characteristics inviting scholarly dispute may deserve some

special attention.

The ten life-size Lamdre masters in gilt copper repoussé technique

from Mindröl Ling (sMin grol gling) monastery are no doubt among

the most fascinating statues to exist in present-day Tibet (fig. 2, 3).

Though closely connected with the Sakya tradition the complete set of

21 images, from Buddha Vajradhara to the Shalu lotsawa Chökyong

Sangpo (Chos skyong bZang po, 1441-1528), was moved from the de-

serted Drathang (Gra thang) monastery shortly before my first visit

25

there in 1992 to the Nyingma seat at Mindröl Ling, where they are now

installed in the heart of the dukhang. In style and technique these unique

monumental yogins and teachers indicate a Newari atelier, which is con-

firmed by a Nâgarî inscription on one of the exposed images. It is be-

lieved that they were commissioned by Chökyong Sangpo, who came

from Shalu to central Tibet in 1483 to become later on abbot of

Drathang, where he introduced the Lamdre teachings of the Sakya tradi-

tion.

At Gong dkar Chos sde he may have been in contact with the genius

artist mKhyen brtse or with his atelier, whose unorthodox modern

painting style and some related nearly lifesize and very realistic statues of

Lamdre masters (as they are mentioned for an unidentifiable site in

1919)5, were probably not without influence on the Nepalese artists.We

are informed by the texts (Zhva lu gdan rabs) that Chökyong Sangpo’s

disciple Ön Lodrö Pekar (‘On bLo gros Pad dkar) commissioned a pre-

cious image of his master after the death of the latter, which might be

identical with the last one of the 21 statues at Mindröl Ling. Whether all

other repoussé figures of this cycle were still made during the lifetime of

Chökyong Sangpo remains purely speculative.6 It is, however, more

likely that the complete set was produced after the Shalu Lotsawa had

died in 1528. Thus a date to the second quarter of the 16th century does

not only correspond better to the general characteristics of a 16th cen-

tury style like it is illustrated for example by the magnificent Siddha mu-

rals at Yamdrog Talung (Ya ‘brog sTag lung) monastery, but would be

also in accordance with the dating of the exhibition catalogue (“first half

of 16th century”), whose 33(!) pages on this subject present an ex-

tremely detailed documentation on the Sakya school in Tibet and its 5 p.122. See Kah-thog Si tu Chos kyi rGya mtsho (1880-1925): Gangs ljongs dbus

gtsang gnas bskor lam yig nor bu zla shel gyi se mo do (An Account of a Pilgrimage to

Ü-Tsang in the Land of Snows entitled Necklace of Moon Crystal), Palampur 1972,

p. 156ff.

6 U.von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet. Hongkong 2001, vol.II, p. 972ff.:

“after 1495”.

26

essential Lamdre tradition, as well as on the various iconographic, stylis-

tic, art historical, and technical aspects of the Mindröl Ling statues

(p.119-151).7 In his precise and substantial commentaries, Andreas

Kretschmar clearly identified the Mindröl Ling group with the oral Vajra

verses tradition of the Lamdre system from the early beginnings until

Zhang ston Chos ‘bar (1053-1135, no.7 of the exhibition), which were

written down for the first time by the third Sakya throne-holder Sa chen

Kun dga’ sNying po (1092-1158, no.8).

By reviewing the sculptural highlights of the exhibition via some kind of

chronological order, I do not follow here the “iconological” system of

the overall presentation, which, displaying the objects within the specific

context of function and meaning, is generally the best way to introduce

a foreign culture of complex and difficult symbolism to a greater public.

Among the early metal sculptures shown in the exhibition, two male

figures of unknown iconography from the Potala Palace are labelled as

“Zhang zhung Kingdom of Western Tibet, 8th century” (no.40), an

attribution which is solely based on von Schroeder’s problematic “iden-

tification” of some twelve predominantly Buddhist (!) statuettes disco-

vered by him in the Potala Palace and at a few other sites in Tibet in the

1990s.8 In her text to this entry Marit Kretschmar (MK) refers mainly –

and correctly – to the early “Central Asian” costumes of these images, a

7 This Lamdre cycle recalls the wellknown painted Ngor-Sakya lineage series of proba-

bly once 34 thangkas (over 20 have survived in Western public and private collections)

from Buddha Vajradhara until the 14th Ngor abbot Nam mkha’ dpal bzang (r.until

1595, d.1603) dating to around 1600, of which the first eighteen images are icono-

graphically identical with the Mindröl Ling statues. This is based on an unpublished

preliminary list reconstructing this thangka series by David Jackson (1996) and on the

identification of the last lama in the set, the 14th Ngor abbot, by Amy Heller in: Pal

2003, op.cit., p.295).

8 von Schroeder 2001, op.cit., p.771-791, plate 185 A-B, see for a discussion of his

“Zhang zhung arguments” and for some serious doubts about a Buddhist (!) art pro-

duction in a “Zhang zhung Kingdom of Western Tibet” M.Henss, Review Article on

“Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet” by U.von Schroeder(Hongkong 2001), in Oriental Art,

no.2/2003 (p.49-60), p.55-56.

27

general feature however of early Tibetan figures without any priority for

western Tibet (where in the pre-11th century period the “Kashmirian

mode” had been the only stylistic convention anyway). This may just

confirm the early date of these enigmatic statues, which hardly can be

understood as “donors” (von Schroeder).

Until recently no cultural or artistic profile could be established for a

western Tibetan Zhang zhung kingdom, of which no reliable archaeo-

logical data and clues do exist. Neither during the Tucci expeditions in

the 1930s or the Chinese excavations at Tsaparang and Tholing in the

1980s and 1990s, nor in the course of the extensive field surveys in the

western Changthang plains by John V.Bellezza and from the first ar-

chaeological investigations at Khyung lung dNgul mkhar by Professor

Li Yongxian in 2004 have any similar artefacts come to light, which

would support the hypothesis of a specific group of “Zhang zhung art”.

And how much sense does it make to find Buddhist art production in a

Bon-dominated kingdom, which by mere chronology did not exist any-

more at the time when these images – on stylistic grounds – must have

been manufactured? I also have doubts whether the twelve “Zhang

zhung images” (as suggested by von Schroeder), partly cast in copper

and partly in brass, make a homogenous “oeuvre”. Some of them be-

long to the style of Greater Kashmir, while others are more related to an

early Newar-Central Tibetan style of the sPu rgyal dynasty period.9 One

may argue that Buddhism had found its way to the eastern borderlands

of Greater Kashmir, which is indeed well-documented by several early

rock-carved images in Ladakh, Zanskar, Baltistan and Gilgit, and as-

sume, as von Schroeder does, that the “origins” for these statues might

be sought for in “the Tibetan dominions in the western parts of Central

Asia”. Yet the “origins” only? Or as another construct would make us 9 von Schroeder 2001, op.cit., p.778-791 and p.741-769. On Khyung lung and Zhang

zhung see also M.Henss, Notes on Khyung lung in Ancient Zhang zhung, Western

Tibet. In: Studies in Sino-Tibetan Art. Proceedings of the Second International Con-

ference on Tibetan Archaeology and Art, Beijing, September 3-6, 2004, Beijing 2006,

p.1-26.

28

believe: could these images have been “commissioned” by the Zhang

zhung rulers from those “western” areas? Wouldn’t it be less speculative

to associate them with the Tibetan borderlands in the West around the

8th century, with “Bolorian Tibet” or with “Little Bolor” (Tib. Bru zha),

which was conquered by the Tibetans in 735?

At least four of the six exhibited Kashmir style metal images are of

exceptional quality and art historical importance. An additional advan-

tage of the thoughtful selection is their wide chronological range over a

period of circa 600 years, a rare chance to study the earliest and the

latest Kashmir styles from about 600 to 1200 at the same time. The

most impressive Kashmiri “guest” from the Potala Palace and one of

only two existing early Kashmiri statues of this size and quality is a 94

cm tall standing Shakyamuni inscribed at the base in Sanskrit as having

been donated by the monk Priyaruci and King Durlabha (-vardhana,

r.circa 625-637), which allows a dating of the statue to circa 620-630

(no.13; fig. 4). Almost 400 years later, sometime between 998 and 1016,

when it had apparently been brought from Kashmir to western Tibet, a

Tibetan inscription was added describing this Buddha as the personal

meditational image of the royal prince Nâgarâja (988-1026), son of the

lama-king Ye shes ‘Od of Gu ge, who was constructing at that time the

great “mandala temple” at Tholing. With the exception of the much

later standing Buddha in the Cleveland Museum of Art (datable to circa

1000) and a similar statue in the Lindenmuseum Stuttgart, Germany, no

monumental Kashmir style image of this importance has been shown in

the West before.

Another significant 63 cm high gilt copper statue of a standing Shakya-

muni from the Lhasa Museum (fig. 5) can be regarded in my opinion as

a later, circa 11th century “Gu ge interpretation” by a Tibetan artist of

the classical earlier Kashmir Buddha type (no.14: “Kashmir, 7th/8th

century”). While the attribution of Kashmir style images from the 10th

through the 12th centuries either to a Kashmiri or to a Tibetan artist is

in many cases difficult or even impossible, the Lhasa Buddha indicates

in comparison with nos.11 and 13 as well as with other “genuine” early

29

Kashmir statuary a distinctive local “Gu ge design”: the more schematic

“linear” garment style (“Faltenstil”) of the robe as well as the propor-

tions of the head and its facial features seem to be general characteristics

of Western Himalayan figural art between Gu ge and sPi ti during the

11th and 12th century, compared with nos.11 and 13 or other early

statues of “genuine” Kashmiri provenance.10

Coming back to the original Kashmir style images of the 7th and 8th

centuries, the seated Buddha in dharmacakra-mudra no.11 is another

exhibition highlight from Greater Kashmir, whose artistic production

had an essential influence on Tibetan art during the formative phase

between circa 1000 and 1200, primarily and rather exclusively in the

western regions. From here these images may have been brought at that

time and in later periods (probably a few during the Tibetan military

campaigns in the 7th or 8th century) to central Tibet, where however

their distinctive style did not have a substantial impact on statuary and

painting, which increasingly came under the influence of the great Pala-

Indian and Nepalese traditions. The Lhasa museum image no.11 is one

of the finest seated Buddhas of an “antique” Gandharan-Swat Valley

style lineage, with silver and copper inlays of Central Asian textile pat-

terns. Similar sculptures are preserved in Western public and private col-

lections and in the Yonghegong temple at Beijing11, and in remote

places in western Tibet, where even “unknown” masterpieces of an early

Kashmir style have survived like at Gu ru rGyam cave sanctuary in an-

cient Khyung lung valley, to be properly rediscovered and hopefully

published in the near future. Even at much more prominent places like

the Ramoche in Lhasa, exceptional Kashmirian statues are preserved

10 Compare for example Huo Wei/Li Yongxian, The Buddhist Art in Western Tibet.

Chengdu 2001, fig.193 (Western Tibet), 195 (Kashmir). See M. Henss, Buddhist Metal

Images of Western Tibet, ca.1000-1500 A.D.: Historical Evidence, Stylistic Considera-

tion, and Modern Myths. The Tibet Journal, vol.XXVII, no.3/4, 2002, p.23-82. The

Buddha image no.14 was already published in: Jinse Baozang. Xizang lishi wenwu

Xuancui, Beijing 2001, p.146f.

11 See P. Pal, Himalayas 2003, op.cit., no.62, 68; Priceless Treasures. Beijing 1999,

no. 26.

30

such as an (unpublished) 87 cm tall crowned Buddha of the circa 11th

century, a period when probably most of the Kashmir style images were

brought to central Tibet (fig. 6).

A very interesting six-armed Avalokiteshvara from the Potala Palace

represents the late Kashmir style of around 1200 (no.35). However, I

cannot agree with the catalogue text, according to which this image

would not be “a Kashmiri work in the real sense”, yet with “influences

from other regions”. From which regions? Was there ever any distinc-

tive influence from the neighbouring regions on the art of Kashmir ex-

cept of the Indian Gupta and the Gandharan-Swat mainstream? Has

ever a Kashmiri statue been associated with the highly refined late

Kashmir style of the Alchi murals, where similar floral ornaments and

flamed patterns like on the throne and nimbus of the Potala statue do

occur?12 And can late or latest elements of an over five hundred years

old artistic tradition (which is subject to change!) be interpreted as a

foreign vocabulary?

Early Chinese Buddhist bronzes like the Shakyamuni figure no.12

from the Potala Palace (dated to the year 473) were no doubt brought to

Tibet during the 7th and 8th century, be it with the Tang princesses

Wencheng Kongjo (Tib. Mun sheng Kong co) in 641 and Jincheng

Kongjo (Kim sheng Kong co) in 710, be it with Chinese masters and

missions in the successive years. Unlike Buddhist images from Nepal

and India and comparable with the occasional “imports” of 8th and 9th

century Kashmir style statues, those Chinese sculptures had no influence

on contemporary and later Tibetan art. There are at least another twelve

Chinese Northern Wei through Tang dynasty bronzes preserved in the

Potala Palace and Jokhang collections and seven statuettes dating to the

Tang period in Tashi Lhünpo monastery.

12 See R. Goepper. Alchi. Ladakh’s Hidden Buddhist Sanctuary. The Sumtsek. London

1996.

31

The Pala-Indian predecessors of Tibetan art are represented by one of

the most beautiful and important masterpieces of the entire exhibition:

the life-size standing Bodhisattva Maitreya from the Li ma lha khang

in the Potala Palace collection (no.32; height: 154cm; figs. 7, 8, 9, com-

pare with fig. 11). Before 1991, the year when these chapels were

opened to the public for the first time, this exceptional 12th century

brass statue virtually did not exist for pious pilgrims and experienced

experts. Since then this most beautiful monumental Indian sculpture in

Tibet has been largely covered by silk brocades. Thus the real grandeur

of this Pala style statue with all the ornamental silver and copper inlays

on the dhoti and the turquoise and other precious stones indicating a

manufacture for a Tibetan patron was only revealed in the exhibition.

The image was either produced in eastern India (as it is known for

example for a painted scroll commissioned by Atisha) or, probably more

likely, in Tibet by an Indian artist. At least two more monumental

statues of the 11th and 12th centuries in a private property and at sNye

thang monastery (fig. 10)13 document clearly the presence, and as

I believe, the production of large Indian metal statues in Tibet. And one

wonders about the strict objections of some Tibetologists against a

possible Indian authorship of a few early thangkas found in Tibet14

(fig. 121).

13 See Rhie/Thurman 1996, op.cit., no.171 (“Central Regions, Tibet”), and for the cer-

tainly later Pala style Maitreya at sNye thang M. Henss, Himalayan Metal Images of

Five Centuries: Recent Discoveries in Tibet. Orientations, June 1996, fig.20. See in this

context for a monumental Pala-inspired Tibetan bodhisattva statue of the 12th century

Pal 2003, no.108 (“9th century”!).

14 While the extensive discussion on the “Indian” or “Tibetan” origin of the Green

Tara in the Ford Collection (Baltimore) is certainly a delicate issue (although in my

opinion being more in favour of an Indian artist), at least a fragmentary 11th century

painted scroll of the debating Maitreya and Manjushri found in Tibet must be attrib-

uted with much likelihood to an artist from India, see Tibet. Arte e spiritualità, ed. by

S.B. Deotto, Milano 1999, plate p.101, and S.Kossak, Pala Painting and the Tibetan

Variant of the Pala Style, The Tibet Journal, vol.27, 3/4, 2002, p.6, fig.6.

32

Without going here into all details a few considerations may sum up and

bring the dispute further about the chronology and „Indo-Tibetan“

provenance of the „F o r d –T a r a “ (size: 122x80 cm), one of the most

significant early Tibetan style paintings:

1. There can be no doubt that this Khadiravaôi (“dwelling in the magi-

cal Acacia forest”) cum Aíåamahâbhaya (“protecting from the Eight

Great Perils”) Târâ was originally commissioned and painted in the

Kadampa milieu of Reding (Rwa sgreng) monastery, though appar-

ently for another monastic site of this school nearby.

2. It seems difficult not to accept a date of this famous painting

between ca. 1164 and 1175 in view of some historical clues given

according to Dan Martin’s reading and interpretation of the inscrip-

tion on the back of the thangka (cf. Martin 2001).

3. The dating of the Ford Tara to the third quarter of the 12th century

appears to be supported by certain stylistic features like the drawing

of the physiognomies and the rather slim and elegant figural pro-

portions compared with earlier Tibetan paintings as they are pre-

served in Shalu, Yemar or Drathang (compare here for a example a

Green Tara at the southern wall). And likewise does the painting

under review not show sufficient similarities in composition, figural

style and color palette with the painting fragment of the debating

Maitreya and Manjushri (see note 14), which might be, at least from

a more strictly Tibetan perspective, on stylistic, iconographic and

probably also on historical grounds the so far only safely attributable

Indian painting from Tibet dating to the 11th century. A date of the

Ford Tara to sometime after the mid-12th century would be further

supported by the only other closely related painting – in iconogra-

phy, style, and size (120x80 cm!) – to exist: a thangka of the three-

headed and eight-armed Aíåabhuja æyâma Tara (according to the system of Atisha) of excellent quality, however in problematic con-

dition, which I have seen at Reding (!) monastery in 1990 and 2001

and whose various stylistic characteristics point out rather clearly to

the second half of the 12th century (see for a full-page colour repro-

33

duction: Xizang Yishu. Hui Hua Juan [The Art of Tibet. Vol. Pain-

ting], Shanghai 1991, pl.197).

4. Stylistic differences and variations in comparism with other con-

temporary Tibetan paintings or on one and the same individual

painting are characteristic for the formative early period of Tibetan

art in the 11th and 12th century. Specific Indian style elements like

for example the facial features of the two attendants at both sides of

central figure can be also found on some other thangkas, which are

clearly painted by Tibetan artists in the 12th century.

5. Nevertheless, inscriptional, literary and iconographic data not pro-

viding any support for an Indian origin of the painting do not neces-

sarily rule out the manufacture by an Indian artist (in Tibet).

6. That Buddhist paintings and sculptures were commissioned or ac-

quired by Tibetans in India and brought to Tibet next to all pious

pilgrims’ souvenirs, or produced in Tibet by Indian artists for Ti-

betan patrons is illustrated and documented by several preserved

images and textual references (palm-leaf manuscripts, Debating Mai-

treya and Manjushri, gilt copper and brass statues in Nyethang mo-

nastery and in the Potala Palace, etc.). The extensive reconstruction

of Talung monastery not far from Reding was supervised in the

early 13th century by an Indian artist (Sörensen/Hazod 2007, p.743);

see also note 137).

7. A primarily textual or philological approach to Tibetan Buddhist art

without proper (!) art historical analysis and evidence can be mis-

leading such as for example “stylistic comparisons” of the Ford Tara

with much later fabric images or painted monk portraits from sTag

lung monastery (Martin 2001). And in many though certainly not all

cases may styles, when one looks carefully, be taken as rather con-

clusive evidence in absence of other indications!

8. Finally, in order to sum up and to protect the reader on behalf of

this Tara from the Eight Great Fears when not being able to accept

these eight conclusions, we may suggest the “middle way”: the Ford-

34

Tara was probably painted around ca. 1170 at Reding monastery by

a Tibetan atelier, maybe in collaboration with a leading artist from

India or at least under the distinctive influence of Indian Pala pain-

tings as they were no doubt occasionally brought to or produced in

Tibet.

Just three examples of comparable Indian stone and metal sculpture

may prove what has not been seen in the catalogue text: a superb 11th

century stone torso of a female figure in the Delhi National Museum

(fig. 11), a Tara stele in the Indian Museum at Calcutta dated to 1074,

and a Kurkihar Avalokiteshvara in the Patna Museum of the late 11th or

early 12th century.15

One cannot help but regret when looking at this Sambhogakâya-

Maitreya, that he does not reveal his “true” unpainted face, now after

over 800 years, though more for the pleasure of the art lover than for

the benefit of unknown hierarchs and countless pilgrims on their path

from the formal beauty of the phenomena to the formless truth of the

dharma. A monumental crowned Buddha Amitayus with traces of an

old cold gilding (face) in a private collection may represent another

idiom of the Indian Pala style in Tibet (height: 60 cm) in the 12th cen-

tury or at around 1200. Whether this masterpiece of “Indo-Tibetan” art,

which recalls the Tibetan tathâgata paintings of that period in composi-tion and decorative details, was produced by an Indian image-maker in

Tibet as one is inclined to believe, or cast in a Tibetan workshop in a

rather pure Indian style is difficult to say (fig. 122).

While other Nepalese sculpture is represented only by a small but beau-

tiful 14th century gilt copper statuette of a thousand-armed Avalo-

kiteshvara (no.33), the significant image of the seated bodhisattva

(Amoghasiddhi?) no.20 should be rather attributed to a Newari atelier of

the 11th century than described as “Tibetan”. Like several other statues

of the same style, this loan from the Lhasa museum can be regarded as a

prototype model for Tibetan statuary of the phyi dar period, especially

15 See N.R. Ray, Eastern Indian Bronzes. Delhi 1986, plate 282 and 312.

35

also for monumental clay statues like at the Lhasa Jo khang or at sNye

thang monastery.16 In its simple composition and jewelry adornment it

recalls the classical tradition of early Newari sculpture at a time when

Tibetan artists were just about to copy and to assimilate the formal vo-

cabulary of their neighbours to the south, west and north of the central

regions.

Two royal figures, no. 80 and 81, are masterpieces of Tibetan statuary

in a double sense: beautiful examples of advanced 14th century image

art and rare incunabula of high-ranking secular iconography. The 47cm

high brass image of King Songtsen Gampo (Srong btsan sGam po, no.

81, fig. 12, compare with a much later statue fig 107) from the Potala

Palace is, with the exception of some early 9th century rock-carvings in

eastern Tibet, the earliest preserved statue of a sPu rgyal dynasty king,

represented here in the much older concept of the “Avalokiteshvara in

the form of a king” (Blue Annals). The catalogue text (by Petra Maurer)

however, though extensively informing the reader about Srong btsan

sGam po in general, does not say anything about the proper statue with

regard to its historical, iconographic and stylistic aspects in context.

While this king was identified with Tibet’s most prominent bodhisattva

already during the later monarchic period, when those kings were

described as “son of the gods” (lha sras) or as a “king divinely mani-

fested” in contemporary rdo ring inscriptions and Dunhuang texts, the

individual image of the bodhisattva ruler with the small Amitabha figure

on top of his turban did not exist to the best of my knowledge before

the 14th century. When Ta’i si tu Byang chub rGyal mtshan (1302-

1364), the actual ruler of dBus gTsang towards the middle of the 14th

century, promoted a “national renaissance” by creating a new awareness

16 Compare for other metal statues of this type and style D.Welden/J.Casey Singer,

The Sculptural Heritage of Tibet. Buddhist Art in the Nyingjei Lam Collection.

London 1999, pl.11; von Schroeder 2001, op.cit., pls.167, 217-220; Qing Gong Zang-

chuan Fojiao Zaoxiang (Tibetan Buddhist Sculptures in the Palace Museum), Beijing

2003, pl.83.

36

of the Tibetan roots in the dynastic era, the historical and ideological

background and motivation for such images and for a proper Srong

btsan sGam po cult were established. And at the same period, between

1328 and 1346, the first monumental clay statue of this king was in-

stalled in the Jo khang (fig. 13), which may have served as a model for

the metal image of the exhibition.17

The historical circumstances are confirmed by stylistic criteria. The

characteristic dragon medallions of the king’s robe can be well com-

pared with similar designs of imperial symbolism on Yuan dynasty tex-

tiles. – The catalogue texts for the two royal images of the same (!) pe-

riod and style are strangely written by two different authors. In her de-

tailed discussion of the anonymous “Tibetan dharma king” no.80 Ber-

nadette Broeskamp (BB) follows largely the description in von Schroe-

der’s “Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet” (“Princely donor depicted as Ami-

tayus? 11th/12th century”, fig. 14)18, yet interprets the iconography

more convincingly as an early religious king (chos rgyal) in the sam-

bhogakâya aspect.

Although this idealized statue of a worldly sovereign may well be asso-

ciated with earlier concepts of Vairocana as an universal ruler and of the

dharmarâja-cakravartin, it must be dated to the same 14th century pe-

riod like the king no.81. Both images have similar motifs and stylistic

elements: garment style and especially the making of the lower part of

17 See on this subject also here pp. 140-142, and for a detailed discussion M.Henss,

King Srong btsan sGam po Revisited: The royal statues in the Potala Palace and in the

Jokhang at Lhasa. Problems of historical and stylistic evidence. Essays on the Interna-

tional Conference on Tibetan Archaeology and Art, Beijing 2002, Chengdu 2004

(p.128-171), p.132ff. According to a Gung thang dKar chag from 1782 statues of

Songtsen Gampo and his two wifes were made under the Lhasa ruler sMon lam rDo

rje (r. ca.1304-36) and/or his successor Kun dga rDo rje (r. 1323-51) after 1328 and

before 1351 (see also Sorensen/Hazod 2007, p.199), which would correspond to the

extensive reconstruction works of the Lhasa Tsuglagkhang in the 1340s. Probably the

royal clay statues, which existed in the Jokhang until 1966 (fig.13), were identical with

those recorded in the ancient texts for the second quarter of the 14th century.

18 von Schroeder 2001, op.cit., p.940.

37

the robe, facial features, and hair style. The crown leaves do not resem-

ble those of the 11th or 12th century, which are characterised by a

rather flat and linear design (see for example no.20!), but recall instead

the more sculptural style of 13th and 14th century metalwork inlaid with

precious stones.19 A comparison with similarly dressed princely figures

in the wall-paintings at Drathang (Gra thang, 1081/1093) is for chrono-

logical reasons misleading. The style of the royal metal statues in the Po-

tala indicates also an archaistic element in order to mark the historical

continuity and the “revival” of the chos rgyal period and its “mode

monarchique” in the 14th century. Ornamental textile patterns such as

the Central Asian roundels on the sleeves of the king’s robe can be re-

garded as specific designs of ancient royal or princely dresses and were

apparently used for a similar context also in later times. And last but not

least, no other royal statues of this type exist, which can be safely attri-

buted to the phyi dar period.

One of the most exceptional loans of the entire exhibition, both for its

sheer aesthetic beauty and technical workmanship as well as for its art

historical importance, is the large gilt copper statue of the Kalacakra

yidam deity from Shalu monastery (no.54, height: 60 cm), an un-

rivalled masterpiece of a Tibetan yab-yum image (fig. 15). Nowhere else

in Tibet or in any public and private collection in China or abroad has

been preserved a similar sculptural group of this size and quality. The

catalogue text (Gregor Verhufen) however is limited to a general though

detailed iconographic description of the Kalacakra yidam without giving

any attention to the individual statue and to its art historical or technical

aspects.

This principal image was no doubt specifically associated with Bu ston’s

Kalacakra teachings and praxis at Shalu and thus would probably have

been produced there by an atelier from the Kathmandu Valley some-

19 Compare also for further ca.14th „princely“ statues in the Potala Palace von

Schroeder 2001, pl.312 A-C; Henss 2004, op.cit., fig.20.

38

time between 1320 and 1364.20 The elegant movement of the figure,

the dynamic and very decorative scarves, the elaborately worked crowns,

and the various inlaid precious stones indicate clearly the Newar artist

tradition of that period, stylistic characteristics which can also be recog-

nized in several painted cycles at Shalu. And it must have been this ulti-

mate yidam image representing the highest teaching system of the Yoga

Tantras, which in 1919 the famous pilgrim-scholar Kah thog Si tu Chos

kyi rGya mtsho had seen on his extensive travels in the Central Regions

of Tibet, “as tall as an arrow, of pure gold and adorned with precious

stones”.21 The reviewer being familiar with this monastery since 1980,

cannot help adding his personal thanks – certainly in the name of many

others who have seen the exhibition – to the monk community of Shalu

(and so he did during a visit in October 2006) for having been so gene-

rous to let one of their most precious treasures go for some time to the

western world.

That significant early paintings are less well represented in the German

exhibition depends at least partly on the more limited material which has

survived in good condition. And obviously there are now many more

pre-16th century thangkas in Western properties (most of them more or

less extensively restored) than in Tibetan monasteries and other institu-

tions, which have not been ritually used for long or never did undergo a

thorough restoration. Although we do not know if there are still hidden

treasures among the painted scrolls stored in the Potala Palace, it seems

that there is probably only a single painting of the characteristic 12th

and 13th century Five Tathâgata sets left in Tibet as they once existed

for example at Shalu monastery22 and from where their sculptural coun-

terparts were lent for this exhibition (no.19a-e; fig. 16, see also fig. 106)

20 See for other contemporary gilt copper images by Newari artists in Shalu monastery

von Schroeder 2001, pls.229 A-C, 230 A-C, 231 A and B.

21 See Kah thog Si tu 1972, op.cit., p.413.

22 See S.K.Pathak, The Album of the Tibetan Art Collections. Patna 1986, pls.5,6, 7,11

(photographed by the Indian scholar R. Sânkúityâyana on his travels in southern Tibet

between 1929 and 1938). According to my knowledge circa 20 painted scrolls of this

39

The most significant and beautiful painting shown in the exhibition is a

hitherto unpublished 14th century thangka of a Newari artist depicting

the crowned Diamond Seat Buddha (fig. 17) or, as it is called in the

Sâdhanamala text of the 12th century, the Vajrâsana tathâgata in bhu-

misparæa mudrâ seated on the diamond throne, triumphing over Mâra

(no.16). Like in several earlier 12th and 13th century paintings23 the

Buddha is represented soon after his enlightenment seated in the Ma-hâbodhi temple at Bodhgaya, yet depicted “ahistorically” with a crown like a cakravartin, a “world king” or universal ruler, though “still”

dressed in a monk’s robe of the historical Buddha: Shakyamuni in his

divine and kingly form.

tathâgata type dating to the 12th and 13th century have survived in public and private

collections, not including the later versions of the 14th century. – The Shalu group no.

19a-e represents a canonical image type of the five tathâgatas, which was quite popular

in the Central Regions of Tibet during the 13th and 14th century. The wrong attribution

of these crowned Buddha statues in many publications to “Western Tibet” goes back

to a purely speculative hypothesis inUlrich von Schroeder’s “Indo-Tibetan Bronzes”,

Hongkong 1981, p.35-40, which I had questioned already some twenty years ago (un-

published paper). See also Henss 2002, p.35f., and Henss 2003, p.57f.

23 See C. Bautze Picron, Æakyamuni in Eastern India and Tibet from the 11th to the

13th centuries, in: Silk Road Art and Archaeology, vol.4, Kamakura 1995/96, fig.2, 3,

18; P. Pal, Art of the Himalayas. New York 1991, no.81; S.Kossak/J. Casey Singer,

Sacred Visions. Early Paintings from Central Tibet. New York 1998, no.27; P.Pal (Ed.),

Himalayas 2003, op.cit, no.121; Xizang Yishu (vol.Painting), Shanghai 1991, p.143; Xi-

zang Yishu Jicui (A Selection of Tibetan Art, Taipei 1995, fig.316, all depicting

Shakyamuni without crown, and usually flanked by the white Avalokiteshvara and the

gold- or yellow coloured bodhisattva Maitreya (or in a few cases by the two disciples of

the Buddha), an iconographic standard already at the Bodhgaya Mahâbodhi temple in

the 7th century (see Xuanzang’s report, S.Beal, ed..)l: Si-Yu-Ki. Buddhist Records of

the Western World, London 1884, reprint Delhi 1981, II, p.119), symbolizing compas-

sion (karuna) and friendliness (maitri), are also mentioned in relation with the Mâra epi-

sode in the Lalitâvistara Buddha biography. – See for another 15th century Nepalese

painting of this iconographic type P. Pal, Arts of Nepal, vol.II, Leiden 1978, pl.204,

and J. Casey Singer, Bodhgaya and Tibet, in: Bodhgaya . The Site for Enlightenment,

ed. by J. Leoshko, Bombay 1988, pl.14. – For the “Vajrâsana tathâgata” as described in

several sâdhanas see M.Th.de Mallmann, Introduction à l’iconographie du Tantrisme

Bouddhique, Paris 1975, p.418.

40

The crowned Buddha, basically referring to his sambhogakâya aspect according to the trikâya concept and a quite rare iconographic form of

the Mahâbodhi-Vajrâsana Shakyamuni, symbolizes “the five transcen-

dental insights (jñânas) that the Buddha attained as part of the enligh-

tenment process”24, manifested by the five transcendental Buddhas

seated in the Mahabodhi shrine in the painting’s upper section. The ac-

tual origins and models of the crowned Diamond Seat-bhumisparæa

mudrâ Buddha surrounded by Mâra’s attack and many more scenes of

Shakyamuni’s life-story can be traced back to the characteristic large In-

dian stone steles of the Pala period and especially to the popular small

votive tablets (see no.15) as they were existing mainly in the Bodhgaya

and Nalanda areas to be brought by pious pilgrims and eminent masters

to Tibet.

The Chinese monk-traveller Xuanzang (Hsien Tsiang) reports from the

early 7th century that the principal statue of the Buddha, “eleven feet

and five inches high” in the Mahâbodhi temple depicted calling the earth as witness whilst subduing Mâra. He described it as adorned with “a necklace of precious stones and jewels, whilst on the head they

placed a diadem of encircling gems, exceedingly rich”.25 According to a

textual tradition a coronation was part of celestial consecrations be-

stowed on Shakyamuni after his final meditation stage.26 And as told by

a later Tsongkhapa biography the Jo bo Shakyamuni statue in the Lhasa

Jokhang would have been crowned with a diadem (dbu rgyan) “to en-

24 J. Huntington, Leaves from the Bodhi Tree. The Art of Pala India (8th-12th century)

and its International Legacy. Seattle 1990, p.105f.

25 S. Beal, (Si-Yu-Ki) 1884, op.cit., vol.II, p.121.

26 J. Leoshko, The Vajrâsana Buddha, in: Bodhgaya – the site of enlightenment, ed. by

Janice Leoshko, Bombay 1988, p.41. Leoshko suggests that the concept of the crowned

Buddha is probably emphasizing the connections rather than the distinctions between

the historical Buddha Shakyamuni and the notion of Buddhahood as embodied by the

“ahistorical” transcendental Buddhas.

41

courage the devotion of the Indians”27, which recalls the 10th and 11th

century stone steles from Nalanda depicting the Buddha crowned like a

king as an universal sovereign.

Beyond the very thorough description and interpretation of the Buddha

story around the central composition, nothing is said in the catalogue

text on the art historical and stylistic aspects of the painting, which re-

calls the Newari style murals at Shalu of the first half of the 14th cen-

tury, though it is not really identical with their specific formal language.

While the individual “handwriting” indicates clearly a Nepalese artist

(see detail illustr. p.175,176), one cannot label this magnificent Mahâbo-

dhi enlightenment Shakyamuni simply as “Kathmandu Valley style”. 30

years after Pratapaditya Pal’s pioneering book on Nepalese painting and

so many newly discovered and published painted scrolls and metal

images from Nepal and Nepalese style works of art from Tibet one sees

the need for a comprehensive modern documentation of Nepalese

painting and sculpture and of its “Nepalo-Tibetan” derivatives. And

then one may also find a more precise stylistic – and iconographical -

identity for the much later but somehow archaistic and hardly less re-

fined painting of the Bodhgaya-Shakyamuni no.17 than just “Tibet,

18th-19th century”.28

Another excellent selection – especially in the context of the two pain-

tings no.16 and 17 – has been the sandalwood “model” of the

Mahâbodh i temple at Bodhgaya (fig. 18), the largest and most de-

tailed existing miniature copy of this principal Buddhist sanctuary

among several other replicas in the Potala Palace collection (no.22,

height: 49 cm), with a very informative catalogue text on the history and

27 R. Kaschewsky, Das Leben des lamaistischen Heiligen Tsongkhapa Blo Bzang Grags

pa (1357-1419), dargestellt und erläutert anhand seiner Vita “Quellort allen Glückes”,

Wiesbaden 1971, p.165.

28 In how far the scenes around the central Mahâbodhi Buddha composition may refer

to the tradition of the Buddha’s legendary Kalacakra teachings in the Dhânyakaåaka Stupa (see p.179 and 594, n.101) would deserve a proper iconographic analysis of this

interesting thangka.

42

typology of the Mahâbodhi temple by Niels Gutschow. While several other of these temple copies are much smaller in order to serve as port-

able votive objects for pilgrims, this exceptional shrine in miniature

might have been sent with a highranking mission to Tibet, probably dur-

ing the phyi dar period or at the latest maybe as a sacred gift taken by

the Bodhgaya abbot Æâriputra on his visit to Tibet in 1414. Beyond its

value as an object of veneration, this outstanding reliquary is most im-

portant for architectural exactness as an authentic 11th century “model”

of the original building as it was before the late 11th century (indicated

by some details which no longer exist in the present building).

The attribution of this Mahâbodhi temple replica to Burmese artisans29, who had been involved in the reconstruction of the temple architecture

around 1098, remains however speculative. This assumption is based on

another problematic hypothesis, according to which the so-called “short

necked Buddha” type (as illustrated by this replica) would indicate a dis-

tinctive Burmese origin, but not, one may add, exclusively, since the

early prototypes appear to have their roots in Eastern Bengal. The

wooden temple replica, which seems to be made almost exactly on a

scale of 1:100 in relation to the early circa 50 metres high Mahâbodhi

temple of the Gupta period, informs us like no other of these models

about the original construction of this foremost shrine of the Buddhist

world. Only here we can identify the original stone fence dating to the

first century B.C.E. or the contemporary capitals and bases of the pil-

lars. And even the many small Gupta style Buddha statues in the niches

29 Based on von Schroeder 2001, op.cit., vol.I, p.328-337, according to whom this

wooden replica must have been made in order to “serve as a model for the construc-

tion of a Mahâbodhi-type temple at another location”, a hypothesis, which however

would not correspond so well to the fact, that the object was once brought – as a

sacred reliquary – to Tibet, though it cannot be ruled out that it was given to the new

land of the Buddhist faith only sometime after circa 1200, when there was no more

much need and use for keeping such architectural models for new constructions in the

heartland of the Buddha and beyond.

43

of the central tower and of the portico may serve for a reliable recon-

struction of the former architecture in composition and style.

At about the same time when the sandalwood Mahâbodhi temple no.22 had been carved, one of the most beautifully illuminated Indian palm

leaf manuscripts was written not far away from Bodhgaya, very likely

at the Nalanda Buddhist academy in the late 11th century, from where it

was apparently brought to ‘On ke ru Lha khang monastery, located

some kilometres away from the northern banks of the Tsangpo river

opposite Tsethang (no. 26). This hitherto unknown manuscript of the

Aíåasâhasrikâ Prajñâpâramitâ Sutra (whose name and content should

have been explained briefly in the catalogue) is one of the few illustrated

books of the Pala period in complete condition and especially unique

because of its superbly painted and well preserved wooden covers (58x7

cm, 139 leaves with total twelve illuminations on four pages, figs. 19,

20). According to the colophon the Tsethang manuscript was donated

by the mother of the great pandita Sri Asoka in the second year of the

reign of King Sûrapâla, which corresponds to the very end of the 11th

century.

With no doubt were those Indian manuscript illuminations (fig. 21) of

great influence for early Tibetan paintings in the 11th and 12th century.

In addition to Eva Allinger’s thorough discussion of this painted trea-

sure in iconography and style, which like many other texts in the cata-

logue may certainly suit more the special interest of the scholarly reader

than it would meet the curiosity and capacity of the “other 95%” of the

exhibition’s visitors, at least two approximately contemporary Pala

manuscripts in Tibet are adorned with illuminations and painted or

carved covers of similar breathtaking quality: another 8000 verses

Prajñâpâramitâ text in the Tibet Museum at Lhasa and a manuscript of

unknown content at Sakya monastery.30

30 Precious Deposits, Historical Relics of Tibet, China. Beijing 2000, vol.I, p.108-112;

Sha jia si (Sakya Monastery), Beijing 1985, fig.105. The illuminated Pala manuscript was

shown to me in 1994.

44

The enormous book treasures at Sakya were so far never investigated,

especially the corpus of Sanskrit manuscripts, “one of the last ‘hidden’

treasures of Asia”.31 When in 1926 the Indian scholar Rahula Sâïkútyâ-nana (1893-1963) “discovered 25 bundles of palm-leaf Sanskrit manu-

scripts” in the “Manuscript chapel” (Phyag dpe lha Khang) on the upper

storey of Sakya monastery, “the whole floor was covered with a thick

layer of dust about one-third of an inch”.32 While in 1961 about 250

manuscripts were brought from Tibet to the Minority Palace library in

Beijing and in the successive years many more from various monasteries

were gathered in Lhasa (Potala and Norbulingka Palaces, of which some

are now in the Tibet Museum, figs. 22-27), Sakya is still by far the lar-

gest monastic repository of Tibetan and Indian manuscripts. At present

the Tibetan Academy of Social Sciences in Lhasa is working on a project

for an inventory of the Tibetan written and xylographed books in Sakya.

And only recently all these early manuscripts were moved from the huge

13th century book-shelves in the Lha khang Chen mo to a separate

library hall built in the traditional Tibetan Sakya style in 2004 opposite

the southern front of the main monastic complex.

From “Prajñâpâramitâ light” to the most heavy 8000 verses edition:

no.27 is a 100 cm long and 54,5 cm (!) wide foliant with huge carved

wooden covers and usually “on display” at it’s original place in the main

assembly hall of Gyantse monastery (Chos rgyal lha khang). Both manu-

scripts are documenting in the exhibition the wide range of the eminent

Buddhist textual tradition from the Indian Sanskrit sources to the great

Tibetan Sutra translations in the Kanjur at the time of Tsongkhapa, for

31 E. Steinkellner, A Tale of Leaves. On Sanskrit Manuscripts in Tibet, their Past and

their Future. Eleventh Gonda Lectures 2003, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and

Sciences, Amsterdam 2004, p.30.

32 R. Sâïkútyâyana, Second Search of Sanskrit Palm-Leaf Manuscripts in Tibet. Journal

of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, vol.XXIII, 1937 (p.1-57), p.4-6. For several

illuminated Indian Pala manuscripts photographed in the 1930s in Tibetan monasteries

such as Ngor, Narthang and Sakya see S.K. Pathak 1986, op.cit., plates 19-29.

45

the exhibition catalogue a good opportunity to inform extensively about

the “Perfection of Wisdom”.

Closely connected with the Indian painting tradition of the Pala period

is another hitherto unseen scroll painting of a standing bodhisattva

Manjuæri from the Yarlung Museum at Tsethang and published here for

the first time (no.31; 77,5x23,5cm; fig. 28). Formerly kept at Ke ru Lha

khang in the opposite ‘On Valley this image is no doubt one of the ear-

liest Tibetan paintings to exist, datable on stylistic grounds to the late

11th century.33 The long dbU med inscription on the back consists of

Sanskrit dhâraôis and consecration formulas. The iconographic and sty-listic identity of this vertically proportioned banner – apparently a very

early type of the Tibetan thangka – has been well researched in the cata-

logue by Bernadette Bröskamp.

Quotations from Indian manuscript illuminations of the 11th century

such as the trees on top, the lotuses at the bottom, the figural style of

the bodhisattva, and the kneeling donors recalling similarly drawn lay

worshippers in Tibetan murals of the 11th century, characterise this

painting as an early Tibetan interpretation of the Indian Pala style. The

Tsethang bodhisattva can be also clearly distinguished from the much

earlier Tibetan style found at Dunhuang (London, British Museum) and

from the sPu rgyal period bodhisattva statues at Ke ru Lha khang. The

safe stylistic profile of an 11th century date for this thangka corresponds

to other circa contemporary Pala style paintings outside India like, for

example, in Pagan (Abeyadana, Kubyauk gyi Myinkaba, late 11th and

early 12th century) and also contributes to confirm the dating of other

33 See for a drawing after this painting M.Henss, review article of “Sacred Visions”.

Early Tibetan Painting” (New York 1998), Oriental Art, 4/1998-1999, fig.1, and fig.2

for a sPu rgyal period painting depicting a standing monk.

46

early painted scrolls such as the large Amitayus thangka in the Metro-

politan Museum New York.34

Compared with the Indian roots and antecedents, the Chinese connec-

tion with Tibetan Buddhist art for wellknown historical and geographi-

cal reasons is much more long-lasting and by far more variously interre-

lated in both directions. While the term “Sino-Tibetan art” refers cor-

rectly to all those paintings and statues produced in Tibet but influenced

by specific Chinese elements in style and iconography (though often

misused for Buddhist or “lamaist” art produced in China in the Tibetan

style), “Tibeto-Chinese” should be the right label for all Tibetan style

works of art made in China and its bordering areas.

All together 10 exhibits belong to this second and indeed more attrac-

tive group. All of them were produced in the imperial ateliers, which

guaranteed a highly refined quality standard of Tibetan-Buddhist “court

art” in China. This foreign esoteric Buddhism, its religious fascination

and political function, and its exotic visual world was in fact concen-

trated and limited to imperial demand and patronage, be it the passio-

nate personal attachment to the Tibetan hierarchs and to their sacred

meditational images under the Yongle emperor of the early Ming, be it

the much discussed support of Tibetan Buddhism by the Qianlong em-

peror between political considerations and private interest.

The early chapter of Tibeto-Chinese art during the Mongol-Chinese

and Yuan dynasty period (1279-1368 and before) can’t be represented

better than by the magnificent and extremely well preserved Acala “silk

painting” from the Tibet Museum in Lhasa (fig. 29) woven in the costly

“imperial” slip tapestry technique (kesi) (no. 49). The much discussed

question, where these early fabric thangkas in this especially valued tech-

nique were produced, Lhasa or Dadu (Beijing), is usually answered in

34 See Kossak/Casey Singer 1998, op.cit., no.1. Comparable in both 11th century pain-

tings are the proportions of the head, facial features, nimbus, design of the lotus base,

and donor figures.

47

favour of the Xi Xia Tangut Kingdom, “made in Yuan China”.35 Yet

there is no doubt that the painted models for these highly precious

images came from Tibet.36 In so far as the tapestry is certainly not the

original icon, which according to the Tibetan inscription on the Acala

was dedicated “to the great ‘Khon (Sa skya) master Grags pa rGyal

mtshan (1147-1216) by his disciple Cang brtson ‘grus grags from

Kham”.

Since the first part of the inscription has been variously interpreted as

“commissioned” for Grags pa rGyal mtshan or as “offered” and “pre-

sented” to him, the kesi was dated by some scholars before 1216. Ac-

cording to Per K.Sorensen’s highly interesting, though not always fea-

sible and consistent historiographical argumentation, the Acala would

have been “executed for and donated to” Grags pa rGyal mtshan by

Cang brtson ‘grus grags sometime between 1200 and 1216.37 According

to the most likely interpretation of the inscription the original painting

was “presented” (phul) personally to the eminent Sakya hierarch, that

means during his lifetime, while its woven reproduction was com-

missioned at a later time “on imperial command” at the Mongol capital.

35 Like some other scholars (see for example Bartholomew 2003, p.66f.), or Per K.

Sorensen, (Rulers on the Celestial Plain. Ecclesiastic and Secular Hegemony in Medie-

val Tibet. A Study of Tshal Gung- thang. 2 vols. Wien 2007, vol.II, p.353ff.), focusing

strongly on the pre- and early Mongol Sakya-Tangut relations in the 12th and 13th cen-

turies and especially on the “Xi Xia Tshal Gung thang connection” during the first half

of the 13th century, associates this “patronized tapestry tradition” like the Lama Zhang

kesi in the Lhasa museum and some other related fabric images quite definitively and

in great detail with the Xi Xia Tangut Kingdom (Tib. Mi nyag), where it would have

been manufactured and then “presented to Grags pa rGyal mtshan” between circa

1200 and 1216.

36 See for example a 13th century Acala painting in Kossak/Casey Singer 1998, op.cit.,

no.22 (“ca.1200), which also would support a later 13th century date for the Acala kesi,

whose overall style may hardly predate the painted models.

37 Sorensen 2007, op.cit.: “it is more than likely that the Acala was presented to Grags

pa rgyal mtshan as a token of respect in connection with or on the occasion of some

consecration ceremonies of Cang ston”.

48

A later and in my opinion38 more convincing date of the kesi to the

Yuan dynasty period is also suggested by Bernadette Bröskamp’s very

informative catalogue text because of some linguistic inconsistencies in

the Tibetan inscription caused by the non-Tibetan textile atelier later on

and, less strikingly I would say, due to the “sumptuous colourfulness” of

the kesi. Another argument for a later dating to the Yuan period would

be the extensive and detailed floral ornament surrounding the central

composition, apparently an “advanced” and more sophisticated inter-

pretation of an earlier design, which hardly does occur in Tibetan pain-

ting of around 1200 already. Or the former pearls stitched once on the

figures in the lower register, of which only a single one is now left (al-

most invisible) on the forehead of the central Tara.39

The use of pearls to adorn textiles and fabric images is known as a cha-

racteristic Mongolian tradition. Even more supporting an “advanced

Mongol period” date is, in my opinion, the elaborate silken border (for-

tunately reproduced in the catalogue in full size), which after a closer

look in the exhibition must be the authentic mounting of the period.

The ornamental vocabulary of these golden silks recalls Yuan dynasty

patterns (fig. 30).40 And similarly would the two decorative lan dza (lan

tsha) script panels with the Om mani padme hum mantra indicate a

Yuan period origin41. Although this sacred script originated at the turn

38 M.Henss, The Cultural Monuments of Tibet. The Central Regions, forthcoming,

vol.I, ch.I.9.

39 For this information I have to thank Bernadette Bröskamp.

40 Compare for example a similar design of a later Yuan fabric thangka in the Lhasa

museum, Precious Deposits 2000, op.cit., vol.III, no.22.

41 Similar red and blue silk panels “brocaded in flat gilded paper” have been dated to

the 13th century (see: J.Simcox, Chinese Textiles, London 1994 Spink and Son Ltd.,

no.14) or were used also for top and bottom mounts on a 13th century Song kesi of a

Buddhist image in the Potala Palace (see: Great Treasury of Chinese Fine Arts, vol.6,

Shanghai 1987, pl.193). Another lan dza script panel of this type and technique was

carbon-14 “dated” to 1439-1629 (see: Orientations, February 2000, p.35). Yet how

problematic and misleading these tests can (!) be, is shown in a professional catalogue

of a textile exhibition, where several Tibeto-Chinese silk brocades and kesi weaves

were dated a hundred years earlier (or even “with 95% confidence A.D.980-1290”, ad-

49

of the first millennium in Buddhist Bengal, where it was called in allu-

sion to its calligraphic character “rañjanâ” or “rañja” (Sanskrit: “delight-

ful, pleasant”), and came with Buddhist manuscripts successively to Ne-

pal, Central Asia and China, the decorational use for prominent Tibetan

style works of art like the Acala tapestry does not appear to have been

popular before the Yuan dynasty period. “Rañja” was phonetically imi-

tated by the Tibetans as “lan dza” and predominantly used for ornamen-

tal mantras and bîjas (root syllables).

Whatever the artistic differences in Tibetan “silk painting” of around

1200 or 1300 may be, the figural style of our kesi – for example the

Avalokiteshvara and Uíôîíavijayâ at the bottom – goes rather towards

the 14th century than back to the 12th century. And a good number of

Tibetan painted scrolls, which by stylistic estimation (or speculation)

may date “around 1200” were in fact produced some fifty to hundred

years later. The figural style of the Acala kesi recalls such as of the

Gungthang Lama Zhang tapestry in the same Lhasa museum several

monk paintings from “upper Talung” (sTag lung ya thang) in Central

Tibet and from its Eastern Tibetan “lower Talung” (sTag lung ma

thang) branch monastery Riwoche Tsuglagkhang (founded in 1276), of

which many must be dated to the last quarter of the 13th century.42 Was

this fabric image – woven after a hundred years earlier painted model

(“Vorlage”) – once sent by the Yuan court at around 1300 or shortly af-

ter to Sakya or to Tshal Gungthang as it has been recently argued with

good reason for the kesi portrait of the Gungthang founder Lama

vertisment Spink and Son Ltd, Orientations, August 1989) than they were in fact pro-

duced by iconographic and stylistic evidence (see: Heaven’s Embroidered Cloths. One

Thousand Years of Chinese Textiles, Hongkong 1995, no.21-22 h).

42 On the sTag lung thangkas see Casey Singer 1997 and Kossak 2202 b. A large group

of ca. 80 lama portrait paintings is said to have come from sTag lung monastery

within the last twenty years to the West, of which an essential part may have been pro-

duced at Riwoche monastery inChamdo district, northwestern Kham around or after

1276.

50

Zhang (alias dPal ldan g.Yu brag pa, 1123-93) 43, which can be attributed

to the same period and textile atelier? And, if Tshul Gungthang, would it

have adorned here the contemporary private memorial shrine for

Khubilai Khan, next to a personal image of the latter said to have been

installed here?

And while a manufacture of these woven thangkas in the late 13th or

early 14th century is very likely, there would be much more reason (also

by history and textual sources!) instead of suggesting the eventual

whereabouts in the “Western Xia” Tangut Kingdom, to locate the tex-

tile ateliers at the Yuan capital of Dadu under the supervision of the

genius Nepalese artist A ni ko (Chin. Anige, 1245-1306), who is well-

known for having produced these highly precious and esteemed fabric

images.44

Very probably the Acala with its illustrated and textual references to the

first three Sakya hierarchs was manufactured decades later than the

painted Vorlage (model) and sent with Tibetan dignitaries at the Yuan

court to Sakya monastery in the late 13th or early 14th century. When

between circa 1310 and 1320 the imperial tutor and preceptor Mus chen

rGyal mtshan dPal bzang po, the nephew of ‘Phags pa bLa ma, travelled

from Dadu (Beijing) to Sakya, he carried “woven images (btags sku)” in

his luggage.45 –

43 41 Cf. Sorensen/Hazod 2007, p.43,188,354ff.,362. Although Sorensen offers some

inconsistent and contradictory theories about the date and place of manufacture for

the Lama Zhang and for the Acala Kesi one of his suggestions seems to meet my own

opinion: “We may now conclude that both masterpieces in the final analysis most

probably represent exquisit – early 14th century? – Yüan period products executed in a

Chinese atelier, but based upon or selected from prior, evidently 13th century pain-

tings” (p.376). – A late dating of the Lama Zhang kesi to the Yuan period has been also

suggested by Kossak 1999/2000 (“early 14th century”).

44 For A ni ko (Chin. Anige) see Anning Jing 1994; Henss 2007 b and forthcoming,

with a kesi fabric image of the Green Tara in the Asian Art Museum attributed to the

A ni ko workshops.

45 Sorensen 2007, op.cit.

51

The kesi technique was introduced into China by the Uighurs in the

early Song dynasty (12th century) and, as we are informed by a historical

text, factories for these textiles were established in Hangzhou with

“weavers of gold fabrics from the western regions” and “new trends de-

veloped”.46 Hangzhou is well known for its production of silkenware

and also as an important administration and art center in southern

China, particularly of Tibetan Buddhism during the late Song and early

Yuan dynasty. A comprehensive Tripitaka edition was published here in

1269-1285, many Buddhist texts with “Tibeto-Chinese” illustrations xy-

lographed, and the famous Tibetan style statues at the Feilaifeng grot-

toes carved between 1282 and 1292. It has been argued by the Chinese

scholar Su Bai that the Acala kesi was possibly(!) produced in a Hang-

zhou atelier.47 Although it cannot be ruled out that such silken images

were manufactured in Hangzhou towards the late 13th century, we have

so far no textual or other evidence.

After the first Ming emperor Hongwu (r.1368-1398) had banned the

production and use of those luxurious silken images, a grand revival of

this Tibeto-Chinese art tradition was patronized by both the third Ming

ruler Chengzu, known as the Yongle emperor (r.1403-1424) and espe-

cially during the reign of the Xuande emperor (1426-1435). The large

blue and golden silk brocade banner of Cakrasamvara in yab-yum

from the Yarlung Museum in Tsethang (no.53; 275x210cm without

border), probably once kept in a Tsethang monastery, has been so far –

quite literally – a hidden treasure, which was not on display in Tibet for

the last decades.48 Sometime after circa 1985 its original fabric border

46 After: Tapestry in the Collection of the National Palace Museum (Taipei), Kyoto

1970, p.16, with a good survey on the kesi technique and it’s history (p.11-17).

47 Su Bai, Yuandai Hangzhou de Zangchuan Fojiao Siyuan Kaogu (On Tibetan Bud-

dhism in Hangzhou in the Yuan dynasty and some related cultural relics), in: Su Bai,

Zangchuan Fojiao Siyuan Kaogu (Archaeological Studies on Monasteries of Tibetan

Buddhism, Beijing 1996 (p.365-387), p.376f.

48 A reproduction of the Tsethang Yongle Cakrasamvara was already published in the

picture album A Survey of Tibet, Lhasa, 1987, and in M.Henss, The Woven Image: Ti-

52

was removed and replaced by modern brocades. By the Chinese six-

character mark Da Ming Yongle nian shi in the upper right corner,

“made during the Yongle reign of the Great Ming”, it can be dated to

the years after 1407, when Ming Chengzu met the Fifth Karmapa at the

court in Nanjing and the representatives of the Sakyapa and Gelugpa

schools in the successive years. Compared with two other large-size em-

broidered silk thangkas of Cakrasamvara and Vajrabhairava in the Lhasa

Jokhang bearing the same Yongle reign mark49 the Tsethang banner de-

picts no other deities or monk figures, which would allow an attribution

to one of these Tibetan-Buddhist traditions or to a specific hierarch.

The monochrome gold technique has been associated in the catalogue

text (by Juliane Noth) with the originally Central Asian Nasij (“gold

cloth”) weaving of the Yuan period. Basically similar gold-and-blue silk

lampas weaves with Buddhist design did exist already in the 13th cen-

tury.50 Possibly these uni-coloured “silken paintings” on blue or red

ground had also some influence on later Tibetan thangkas painted in an

equivalent monochrome technique. I cannot see, however, any distinc-

tive drawing style in the “Chinese brush painting manner” (catalogue

text). “Chinese” is here the entity of several formal and technical fea-

tures and the individual “handwriting”: the transformation of a Tibetan

iconographic and aesthetic vocabulary into a new Tibeto-Chinese syntax

of slightly different figural proportions, facial features, and ornamental

design (lotus petals), which appear to have been meticulously copied but

were seen through the eyes of a Chinese artist. At least two more Yon-

gle-marked gold-threaded silk thangkas of the same style and from the

same atelier exist in Lhasa: a Vajrabhairava on blue ground in the Potala

beto-Chinese Textile Thangkas of the Yuan and Early Ming Dynasties, Orientations,

November 1997, fig.11.

49 Henss 1997, op.cit., fig.9, 10. When these two banners were shown upon my per-

sonal request in 1994 I was sadly unable to make detailed photographs and thus could

not identify the lamas and their specific lineage in the upper register.

50 See A.Heller, Tibetan Art. Milano 1999, p.88, plates 75, 76.

53

Palace (fig. 31) and another one depicting the same yidam protector on

red ground in the Jo bo chapel of the Jokhang. 51

Although the Guhyasamâ ja-Aksobhyavajra silk embroidery from

the Potala Palace (no.55) was previously published in colour52, it is just

breathtaking to see the original image and its fascinating bright colour-

fulness and brilliant stitching freshly preserved with its original fabric

border as if it were made yesterday! (fig. 32)

The thorough written catalogue text (by Bernadette Bröskamp) presents

an interesting and convincing iconographic analysis, especially with re-

gard to the two monks in the upper section. While the lama to the left

can be quite safely identified by his black hat with the double vajra and

by the small Manjushri figure (alluding to the first Ming emperor, who

was declared a reincarnation of the wisdom bodhisattva by his succes-

sor) as the Fifth Karmapa bDe bzhin gShegs pa (1384-1415), the other

“black hat lama” to the right might be more difficult to determine. Since

another Karmapa can be ruled out for sheer chronological reasons, it

can be only – as rightly suggested in the catalogue – the Tsongkhapa

disciple Shakya Yeshe (Shakya Ye shes, 1352-1435), to whom the Yon-

gle emperor had also bestowed a black hat and the title “Son of the

Buddha of Western Heaven” and “Great National Preceptor” (dagu-

oshi) at their meeting in 1415.

Shakya Yeshe is represented on various other fabric images in succes-

sion of his great master as the supreme teacher and great Gelugpa head

displaying the dharmacakra mudrâ. The figure in bhumisparæa and

dhyâna mudrâ on the embroidery – with the blue six-armed Mahâkâla

protector of the Yellow School! – would be interpreted as the Gelugpa

hierarch second to Tsongkhapa at a time when the latter was still alive.

If so, how can the representatives of these different religious traditions

51 For the blue Vajrabhairava brocade image see: The Potala. Holy Palace in the Snow

Land, Beijing 1996, p.151. The Jokhang banner is unpublished.

52 Bod kyi thang ka (Tibetan Thangkas), Beijing 1985, pl.5; Henss 1997, op.cit., fig.12.

54

be depicted on one and the same thangka, which usually was dedicated

and offered to the head or to the principal monastery of a specific

school? This unorthodox iconography can be only explained by an “un-

usual” yet nevertheless very probable function (in view of our usual un-

derstanding of these very images!) of this embroidery, as an apparently

personal use of the emperor for his own religious needs at the court.

As already mentioned, this silken masterpiece must have been commis-

sioned for iconographic reasons during the reign of the Yongle em-

peror, whose imperial production of elaborate fabric images and refined

gilt copper statues was not primarily associated – at least in the earlier

years - with one of the three major Tibetan Buddhist schools like later

on with the Gelugpa under the Xuande emperor. Thus in correspon-

dence to Ming Chengzu’s political and diplomatic activities, an icono-

graphic syncretism and “ecumenical” approach equally towards the

Karmapa Kagyüpa, Sakyapa, and Gelugpa would characterise the bro-

caded and embroidered silken thangkas produced during his reign. By

iconographic and historical evidence the Potala-Guhyasamaja must be

dated after Shakya Yeshe’s first visit at the Ming court in 1415/1416 and

before the death of Tsongkhapa in 1419.

The style and the distinctive gold-thread technique can be best com-

pared with the two large Yongle-marked embroidered banners in the

Lhasa Jokhang (figs. 33, 34, see above for no.53) and with a third

thangka of Raktayamâri belonging to the same set, which is now in a private collection (fig. 35).53 Figural proportions and drapery style, the

chiaroscuro shading of the body and the ornamental gold-thread “draw-

ing” of the throne-back and nimbus, particularly of the smaller seated

figures, are so similar that both the “Jokhang set” and the Potala Gu-

hyasamaja must have been produced in the same imperial atelier at

about the same period. This would confirm a date of the Potala embroi-

dery to 1416-1419.

53 See Christie’s New York, 2.6.1994, no.225.

55

The same ornamental design can be also found among the famous gilt

metal statues of the Yongle period. A close affinity exists also between

the figural and ornamental style of the embroidery and of the wall-

paintings (and statues) at Gyantse monastery and castle (ca. 1390-1430s;

figural proportions, garment style, jewellery, torana arch and pillars, lo-

tus throne). And obviously the well-documented regular missions from

Gyantse to the Ming court and back in the early 15th century had left

some cross-cultural artistic traces in Tibetan painting and statuary in

China and in Tibeto-Chinese art in Tibet. Not “Nepalese” art was in-

strumental for the formation of the new “lamaistic” court style under

the Yongle emperor, but the “Nepalo-Tibetan” style of the art at Gy-

antse of around 1400.

Another extraordinary Tibetan style embroidered thangka depicting

Kapâladhara-Hevajra comes from the Potala Palace (no.50). By the

rich design around the central figure and the decorative entity of image

and ornament, the tantric protector has been transformed into a luxuri-

ous tapestry of imperial extravagance. The iconographic relation of the

Hevajra yidam to the Sakya tradition does not necessarily associate this

perfectly preserved banner with the visit of the 32nd Sakya abbot Kun

dga’ bKra shis rGyal mtshan at the Ming court in 1413 (in Nanjing and

Beijing), but may also refer to Shakya Ye she’s meetings with the Ming

emperor in 1415 or in 1434/35, now being entitled by the Xuande em-

peror (r.1425-1435) as “Jamchen Chöje” (Byams chen Chos rje, “the

Dharma King of Great Mercy” Chin.: daci fawang). Two other silken

images of Hevajra, one in kesi technique in the Potala Palace and one

embroidery in a private collection include the portrait of this principal

Gelugpa hierarch, the first successor of Tsongkhapa.54 However the to-

tal lack of any other related deities and monks on the Potala-Hevajra

may also indicate the emperor’s private use of the image or, as in the

54 See for the Hevajra kesi: The Potala Palace 1996, op.cit., p.145. For the private col-

lection Hevajra embroidery see A.Heller, A Yung-Lo Embroidery Thangka: Icono-

graphic and Historical Analysis. Sino-Tibetan Buddhist Art Studies. The Third Interna-

tional Conference on Tibetan Archaeology and Arts, Beijing 2006, Abstract.

56

case of the large Cakrasamvara brocade (no.53), another imperial func-

tion at the court.

If the thangka was ever dedicated to the Gelugpa, this “minimal icono-

graphy” would possibly indicate a date of around 1415: At his first

meeting with the Yongle emperor in early 1415, Shakya Yeshe was

treated with fewer honours than the representatives of the Karmapa and

Sakyapa, receiving at that time only the title of a daguoshi, “Great Na-

tional Preceptor”, and of a “Son of the Buddha of the Western

Heaven”.55 When at the occasion of his second visit at the Ming capital

in 1434/35 Jamchen Chöje had obviously managed to bring the Yellow

School into the leading position at the imperial court and had received

the title of a “Great Compassionate Dharma King” (daci fawang) or

Byams chen chos rje as “variation of his title” (E.Sperling), he was

showered with presents by the Xuande emperor.

It seems that in fact most of the fabric thangkas can be attributed to the

reign period of the Xuande emperor (1425-1435), whose promotion for

a revival of the costly Yuan silk tapestries is documented by at least 12

preserved major images in kesi and embroidered brocade technique.

And due to the now much higher imperial appreciation of the new Ge-

lugpa hierarch his portrait as the supreme dharma teacher was depicted

on most of the textile icons made during the Xuande reign.56

55 Ming shilu, ed. Beijing 1974, juan 331, p.8577; E.Sperling, Early Ming Policy toward

Tibet: An Examination of the Proposition that the Early Ming Emperors adopted a

“Divide and Rule” Policy toward Tibet. Phil. Thesis, Indiana University (USA) 1983,

p.136ff.

56 See Henss 1997, figs.7,12,15,16,18; The Potala Palace 1996, op.cit., p.145; E.Lo Bue

in: Tesori del Tibet, Milano 1994, no.81. While during his first visit at the imperial

court in Nanjing (arrival on February 3, 1415) Shakya Yeshe had received the title of a

“State Teacher” or “Great National Preceptor” (da guo shi) by the Yongle emperor,

the more honorific title of a “Great Compassionate Dharma King” (daci fawang), of

which “Jamchen Chöje” (Byams chen chos rje) is a Tibetan variation (E.Sperling 1983),

was only granted on his second visit in Beijing in 1434 by the Xuande emperor. For

references see: Ming-shih, juan 331, p.8577, Beijing 1974; G.Tucci, Tibetan Painted

Scrolls, Roma 1949, p.253 and note 62; T.W.D.Shakabpa, Tibet. A Political History,

New Haven/London 1967, p.84; T.V.Wylie, Lama Tribute in the Ming Dynasty, in:

57

However, the maximum span to date the Potala Hevajra would be, in

my opinion, on historical, iconographic, and stylistic grounds, between

1415, the year of the Yongle emperor’s first encounters with the

Sakyapa and Gelugpa representatives, and 1435, when Jamchen Chöje

made his second visit to the Ming court. Although a more precise dating

remains speculative, stylistic criteria appear to be rather in favour of the

Xuande period than of a Yongle reign date, as suggested in the cata-

logue. The ornamental decoration can be compared with those thang-

kas, which must be attributed to 1434/35 such as, for example, the two

other Hevajra images mentioned above.57

Tibetan Studies in Honour of Hugh Richardson, ed. by M.Aris/Aung San Suui Kyi,

Delhi 1980, p.107; E.Sperling, The 1413 Ming Embassy to Tsong kha pa and the Arri-

val of Byams chen Chos rje Shakya Ye shes at the Ming Court. Journal of the Tibet So-

ciety, vol.2, 1982, p.107; E.Sperling , Early Ming Policy toward Tibet: An Examination

of the Proposition that the Early Ming Emperors Adopted a “Divide and Rule” Policy

toward Tibet. Phil.Diss. Indiana University, USA, 1983, p.149ff. (in 1415 “Ch’eng tsu

did not make Shakya ye shes a fa wang”, but only a “guoshi”); Sera Thekchen Ling,

Beijing 1995, introduction; and last but not least the inscriptions on the two wellknown

kesi and embroidery portraits of this lama in the Tibet Museum, Lhasa, see Henss

1997, op.cit. (see here note 44), figs. 15,18. With regard to Amy Heller’s research on a

comparable Hevajra embroidery in a private collection I can refer here only on my own

photographs of this very thangka and on Heller’s presentation of her paper (and on the

abstract) at the Third International Conference on Tibetan Art and Archaeology in Bei-

jing, October 2006, but not on the complete text of this paper to be published in the

Proceedings of this conference (forthcoming). An attribution of the latter embroidery

to the Yongle emperor and thus to the year 1415 or soon after Shakya Yeshe’s first

visit to the imperial court would be confirmed only by the “lower” title of a daguoshi

in the inscription on the back (presently unknown to me), while the title “Jamchen

Chöje” (Byams chen Chos rje) was bestowed upon the Sera founder later on and

probably not before his second visit to the Ming court in 1434/35, i.e. to the Xuande

emperor. See Sperling 1983, op.cit., p.149ff., and Chen kelun 2004, p.18: it was the

Xuanzong (Xuande) emperor, who “in June, the 9th year of Xuande Reign (1434), con-

ferred the title Byams chen chos rgyal”.

57 The sumptuous ornamental vocabulary of the Potala Hevajra recalls comparable fab-

ric thangkas of the 1434/1435 period such as Henss 1997, fig.7,16,18, or the private

collection Hevajra embroidery, which probably belongs for iconographic and stylistic

reasons (Byams chen Chos rje in teaching gesture, formal affinity to the Metropolitan

Museum, Vajrabhairava) to the late “Xuande group” of circa 1434/1435.

58

Tibetan Buddhist statues made in China, 15th century – the “Yongle Bronzes”

Much better known from among the Tibetan style art production under

the early Ming are the famous “Yongle bronzes”, of which over 300 still

exist (all with reign mark, about 10-15% of them of the Xuande reign

period), nearly a hundred of them in Lhasa (mostly in the Potala Palace),

approximately 70 in the Beijing museums and 40 in other public collec-

tions outside China, and at least about 90 in private collections world-

wide.58 Compared with the fabric thangkas produced between circa

1407 and 1435, it is quite evident that the Yongle emperor’s Tibetan pa-

tronage gave priority to the metal statues, while his successor, the

Xuande emperor, apparently prefered the silken images. Thus by far

most of the early Ming “bronzes” had been sent with Chinese missions

to Tibet or were given to Tibetan dignitaries in the years between circa

1405 and 1425.

Only very few statues were brought to Tibet under the Xuande emperor

and Buddhist sculptures are hardly mentioned as gifts for Tibet in the

official accounts of that later period. The production at the imperial

court testified by the usual six character reign mark was apparently li-

mited to the Yongle and Xuande era. An interesting “Xuande style”

Vajradhara in the Beijing Capital Museum bears not anymore this ca-

nonical signature. According to its long inscription it was cast in the first

58 See for a brief modern survey on the Yongle and Xuande gilt copper statues also the

Sotheby’s catalogue Visions of Enlightenment. The Speelman Collection of Important

Early Ming Buddhist Bronzes, Hongkong 7.10.2006, with an introduction by David

Weldon and detailed texts for 15 images in English and Chinese. – The figure of about

300 still existing Yongle and Xuande style images (with reign mark) is my own estimate.

In 2000 I counted in the Potala Li ma lha khang alone at least 60 statues and another

ca. 15 in the Lhasa Jo khang. A few more are preserved in the Norbulingka Palace and

in the Tibet Museum (Lhasa), and only very few in some monasteries outside Lhasa.

According to curator Huang Chunhe about 50 Yongle and Xuande images (80-90%

Yongle) are kept in the Beijing Capital Museum of totally “circa 10.000” Tibetan and

Tibeto-Chinese statues, which were all brought from Tibet between 1966 and 1976. At

least another 10 marked “Yongle bronzes” are in the Palace Museum and not less than

8 in the National Museum of China, Beijing.

59

year of the successive Zhengtong emperor (r. 1436-49), thus in 1436,

however, not in the court ateliers (fig. 36).59

One of the most beautiful Yongle gilt copper images has been selected

for this exhibition: the pensive Avalokiteshvara from the Potala

Palace collection (no.37). A visual embodiment of this bodhisattva’s

compassion, of the divine and the human, this elegant statue is an un-

surpassable masterpiece of refined and perfect craftsmanship (figs. 37-

40). Only two other images of this Potalaka Avalokiteshvara type “in

royal ease” posture (mahârâjalila) of a lokanâtha (“lord of the universe” or “world protector”) exist.60 The “pensive mudra” and attitude cannot

be traced back to any text source. However, prototypes of a bodhisattva

with the elbow resting on the raised knee, the right hand lifted towards

the cheek slightly inclined in a gesture of contemplation, and the other

hand lying on the foot do exist in Wei and Tang dynasty sculpture. A

seal of an unidentifiable Dalai Lama fixed to the figure’s left arm proves

that this Avalokitshvara was once most probably the personal medita-

tion object of its worldly manifestation. Much has been written and pub-

lished on the “Yongle bronzes”, but rarely were their Tibetan archetypes

or their Tibetan copies61 properly identified! (figs. 123, 124)

That a hundred years earlier Nepalo-Chinese metal images of the Yuan

period would have served as models (catalogue text by Juliane Noth) is

simply on stylistic grounds unlikely. And even closer Yuan sculptures –

in terms of period, location and ornamental systems – like at the Juyong

Guan gateway north of Beijing (1342-1345) cannot be regarded as

prominent forerunners in style and iconography. Among the few more 59 Cf. Selected Works of Ancient Buddhist Statues, Capital Museum Beijing 2005,

figs.58-59.

60 Two other images of this pensive Avalokiteshvara are in the National Museum of

China, Beijing (cf. Fo Xiang Yishu Jingcui 2006, p.224f.), and in the Tuyet Nguyet Col-

lection, Hongkong (cf, Arts of Asia, September-October 1994, cover illustration). A

fourth Yongle period statue of this type exists reportedly in the Shanghai Museum

(Bills 1994, p.80; not published so far).

61 See for example a pure Yongle style Vajrasattva with inlaid precious stones and

without a Yongle reign mark in the Lhasa Tsuglagkhang, von Schroeder 2001, 344C.

60

safely identifiable 14th century Tibetan metal statues (or comparable no

longer existing images), which predate the characteristic “Yongle

bronzes” and which must have served as their models, is a Green Tara

in the Museum der Kulturen at Basel. This statue also shows the specific

double-lotus base with the elongated petals, a distinctive feature of the

“Yongle bronzes”.62

I hesitate to accept the idea that the facial features and proportions of

this statue “correspond completely to the Nepalese style” and thus

would indicate a Newari artist working in the imperial ateliers. Where

are the Yuan period or Nepalese models for this specific type of the

pensive bodhisattva? We must give the imperial ateliers the credit of

having created new iconographic and compositional types following in

some cases much earlier Chinese(!) models as they have been preserved,

for example, by a 10th or 11th century stone sculpture of a pensive

Avalokiteshvara in the Musée Guimet at Paris63, (fig. 41) an icono-

graphic type, which was originally associated with the six-armed Cintâ-maôi cakra bodhisattva sitting on Mount Potalaka. With very few excep-

tions, all these images were manufactured probably after Tibetan proto-

types in an overall “Nepalo-Tibetan” style – as it characterises a major

part of the Tibetan metal statuary during the second half of the 14th

century - by top Chinese court artists, who had learned to copy foreign

models and transform them into a very distinctive and homogeneous

Tibeto-Chinese court style of its own. Was it possible that foreign artists 62 Compare Essen/Thingo 1989, no.48. For two other 14th century Tibetan images see

von Schroeder 2001, vol.II, 255E and 257A.

63 See Sirén 1925, vol.II, plate 568. For another Chinese Song dynasty “model” see

E.D. Saunders. Mudra. A Study of Symbolic Gestures in Japanese Buddhist Sculpture.

London/New York 1960, plate XXI and p.130. “Strong Nepalese traits” were already

suggested for the pensive Avalokiteshvara in the Tuyet Nguyet Collection by Bills

1994, p.80, who considered even a Newari artist working at the Ming court. However

where are the Nepalese prototypes in composition and style for this specific image

type? For the earlier iconography of the pensive bodhisattva type see R.Ghose, Icons

and Imagery: A Journey of Style, in: In the Footsteps of the Buddha. An Iconic Jour-

ney from India to China. Hongkong 1998, p.24-26.

61

could produce statues in the imperial workshops in their own characte-

ristic “home style” without any correspondence to the rather canonic

conventions imposed by the specific formal guidelines of that Tibeto-

Chinese art production?

A few statues with the Yongle or Xuande reign mark exist, whose style

does not or only partly correspond to the usual Tibeto-Chinese artistic

canon promoted under those emperors. Provided of course the inscrip-

tions are authentic, these images would represent next to the main-

stream of the very homogeneous court style some additional though

quite exceptional artistic “traditions” or rather specific ways of manufac-

ture in the imperial workshops:

1) an “almost” pure Yongle style image with some distinctive Nepalo-

Tibetan elements (garment style), produced by a Chinese court artist,

probably during the very early “formative” phase of the Yongle reign

period (figs. 42, 43).64

An interesting Nepalo-Tibetan variation of high quality made in China

was recently seen in Beijing: a Medicine Buddha dating to the early 15th

century, whose lotus base and finely incised robe were of a purely Ti-

betan style, while th face suggested an image-maker of the Yongle pe-

riod (fig. 44)65.

2) a very Nepalo-Tibetan style statue (in proportions, garment style,

jewelry, inlaid turquoise stones) with some “Yongle elements” (facial

features, lotus petal design, shoulder scarves, a probably later incised

Yongle mark!), produced possibly by a Newar artist at the imperial

64 Shakyamuni, height 19,5 cm, Christie’s New York 21.3.2001, no.85. Compare for ex-

ample with a “pure” Yongle style Shakyamuni in the Palace Museum, Beijing. Buddhist

Statues of Tibet. The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Qing Palace Museum,

vol.60, Beijing/Hongkong 2003, no.212. See also von Schroeder 2001, op.cit., vol.II,

344 C.

65 Cf. Council International Auction Co., Beijing, 3.12.2007, no.1793, height: 29,7 cm.

According to the catalogue text with a Da Ming Yongle nian shi reign mark “on the

lower border(!) of the pedestal”, which would be quite unusual for an inscribed image

of the period. Thus by inscription and style this statue cannot be properly identified.

62

ateliers(?), which may have also served as a model for the characteristic

“Yongle bronzes”66(fig. 45). Another Nepalese style Vajradhara donated

or installed according to its Chinese inscription (at the inner base) “in

the fifth year of the Great Ming”, i.e. in 1372, appears to have been

manufactured in China after a Newar style prototype (fig. 46).67

3) a pure Newar style image (of a Newari artist in Beijing? Or a Chinese

copy of a Newari prototype?) is inscribed with an apparently contempo-

rary 12-character “mark” as being made “in the first year of the Xuande

reign” (1426), however it was not manufactured in the imperial ateliers

of this emperor (fig. 47).68 Another purely Nepalese Shakyamuni, which

was hardly produced in the imperial workshops, bears a six-character

66 Vajradhara, height 30 cm, Christie’s Hongkong 1.5.2000, no.753. Compare for

example with a “pure” Nepalo-Tibetan gilt-copper Vajradhara with inlaid semi-

precious stones in the Jules Speelman Collection, and Sotheby’s New York 21.9.1995,

no.55. In addition to group one and two compare some Tibetan copies of the Yongle

style images: Essen/Thingo 1989, op.cit., no.35; H.Uhlig, On the Path to Enlighten-

ment. The Berti Aschmann Foundation of Tibetan Art at the Rietberg Museum Zürich.

Zürich 1995, no.94; Buddhist Statues of Tibet 2003, op.cit., no.168; von Schroeder

2001, op.cit., vol.II, 344 C (?), which may also belong to our group one since inlaid

semi-precious stones – though in fact unusual for Yongle period statues – were used

for Nepalese style images already in the Yuan period ateliers in Dadu (Beijing), com-

pare for example a Manjushri image dated 1305, Buddhist Statues of Tibet 2003,

op.cit., no.209.

67 The inscription of this in view of its artistic and historical attribution enigmatic statue

reads: Da Ming wu nian er yue tu si jing li (catalogue text). The face as seen from pro-

file, the drapery of the scarves around the shoulder, the slightly awkward design of the

double-lotus, and the gold-lacquered technique indicate a Chinese manufacture after a

Nepalese model. See Nagel auction sale, stuttgart, 12.11.2007, no.784.

68 Fig. 47: Shakyamuni, height 16 cm, dated 1426, Palace Museum, Beijing. Iconogra-

phy and Styles. Tibetan Statues in the Palace Museum. Beijing 2002, vol.I., no.70; The

twelve(!)-character inscription on this statue “made on March 10, in the first year of the

Xuande [reign]” is however not a signature of the imperial workshop! - Fig. 48:

Shakyamuni, height 18,5 cm, art trade Switzerland (unpublished). According to Li Jing

(Beijing) the inscription of the latter image has been added in the 18th century due to a

minor variation of the fourth character from left, which would indicate a Qing dynasty

date as it is known for bronze vessels and porcelain.

63

Xuande mark added to the image during or soon after the reign period

of this emperor (1425-35) (fig. 48).

A characteristic feature of the “Yongle bronzes” is the slightly crumpled

and lavishly curved drapery of the shoulder scarves composed around

the figure’s upper body (no.61). This motif recalls similar garment styles

(and models!) in 13th century Song and early Yuan dynasty sculpture and

painting such as for example a “Tibeto-Chinese” painted scroll of the

late 13th century depicting a seated Avalokiteshvara in the Freer Gallery

in Washington. And likewise can the two characteristic streamers falling

over the lotus base of many post-Yongle and –Xuande statues be traced

back to Chinese paintings and kesi fabric images of the Song and early

Yuan period.69

With reference to the illustrations of the Yongle-Kanjur (around 1410),

which were very probably drawn by artists from Nepal or Tibet, von

Schroeder rightly credits craftsmen of those countries as having “played

an active part in the development of this new Tibeto-Chinese school”

[68] but has not been able to identify safely a single Yongle or Xuande

period statue as a work of a Tibetan or Newari artist produced in the

imperial ateliers. A very difficult problem, indeed, to which my own

contributions here may be regarded more as suggestions than as defini-

tive answers.

69 The motif of the drapery streamers can be found on two kesi images of the circa late

13th century in the National Palace Museum, Taipei (see Henss 1997, fig.1), which must

have been woven after painted models such as a hanging scroll depicting a seated

Avalokiteshvara in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington (image: 62x53 cm, see

www.asia.si.edu /collections/singleobject.cfm? Object Jd-7565). This motif is usually

not shown by single images on a double-lotus before the Zhengtong reign period

(1436-49), see hower for an Amitabha statue (height: 57 cm!) with a Xuande reign mark

of the period (catalogue text) at Sotheby’s New York, 25.3.1999, no.121, and for a

Vajradhara in the Beijing Capital Museum dated by inscription to 1436 (fig.36). The

only known Yongle period statue with these two streamers is a Marici riding on a pig,

see no.61 and p.361 in the Villa Hügel catalogue.

64

I cannot recognize among the great bulk of the Yongle and Xuande

sculptures a different degree of stylistic sinization as it is stated in the

catalogue for the Yongle dPal ldan Lha mo image from the Lhasa mu-

seum (no.65), which is not “more Tibetan” or less Chinese than other

statues bearing the imperial signature. In this case iconography has been

misunderstood as style: figures of wrathful deities in Tibetan art present

oftenly greater difficulties for stylistic determination than those, whose

posture, garment, and various adornments offer better clues for an art

historical chronology.

With no doubt the extensive production of Tibetan style art at the early

Ming court was partly motivated by political considerations in order to

continue Mongol-Tibetan relations under the Yuan. The catalogue text

on the Yongle statues however largely excludes emperor Zhu Di’s

strong and – with regard to cultural court politics – very effective per-

sonal interest in Tibetan Buddhist religion and art. How Buddhist was

this Han-Chinese ruler, whose father had been a Buddhist monk in his

young age and whose wife, Empress Xu (d.1407), wrote a sutra on the

Buddhist great virtues describing her spiritual communication with the

bodhisattva Guanyin, who prophesied that Zhu Di would become the

next emperor? No doubt were the production of hundreds of Tibetan

style images and the publication of a monumental Tripitaka edition

(1420 ff) and of the so significant first printing of the Tibetan Canon,

known as the “Yongle-Kanjur” and completed in 1410 by his own

words in the colophon, more personally than politically motivated: “The

merit it brings to us cannot be described in words”. And different from

Khubilai Khan and from the Qianlong emperor, the tantric initiations

bestowed upon Ming Chengzu (Zhu Di’s posthumous honorific title)

did not serve to make him a “sacred King” and cakravartin or a bodhi-

sattva-emperor.70 No mention is made of his fervent conversion to

70 The Yongle emperor’s private attachment to Tibetan Buddhism is further very im-

pressively documented by the famous “Tsurphu Scroll” painting (datable to 1407) in

the Tibet Museum at Lhasa, see Precious Deposits 2000, op.cit., vol.III, no.48, and

D.Berger, Miracles in Nanjing: An Imperial Record of the Fifth Karmapa’s Visit to the

Chinese Capital. In: Cultural Intersections in Later Chinese Buddhism, ed. by M.

65

Tibetan Buddhism. A Buddhist monk, Daoyuan (Yao Guangxiao), was

his closest adviser throughout his life. And “no Chinese emperor treated

any Buddhist eminences with the same degree of deference, amounting

to object adulation”.71 – How much appreciated were those Tibetan

style statues of the early Ming even 300 years later at the place of their

origin is documented by the Kangxi emperor’s (r.1662-1722) great admi-

ration, who, when “sitting in a palace hall, built by the Yongle Emperor,

ordered a palace eunuch to bring out a Yongle image of Amitayus. He

looked over the magnificent work and sighed to the high minister stan-

ding beside him: In the old Buddhist images of Tibet nothing is more

important than li ma (metal image). The images cast in the Yongle era

first among these”.72

On reign marks and style of Buddhist images

in the early Ming dynasty period

The imperial six-character reign mark Da Ming Yongle-le nian shi

Three gilt copper statues, the lotus mandala and the Cakrasamvara silk

brocade banner (nos.37, 53, 61, 65, 75) are inscribed with the six-

character reign mark of the Yongle emperor, which means that they

have been produced during the reign (Chin. nian) of Zhu Di, the Yongle

emperor (1403-24): Da Ming Yong le nian shi, “dedicated (or donated,

bestowed) during the Yongle era of the Great Ming”. This imperial

reign mark (Chin. nian hao) was introduced by emperor Ming Chengzu

into Tibeto-Chinese Buddhist art like for gilt copper statues and, in a

Weidner, Honolulu 2001, p.145-169. See also E.H.Sperling 1983, op.cit., passim; Shih-

Shan Henry Tsai, Perpetual Happiness. The Ming Emperor Yongle. Seattle 2003,

p.143f.

71 J. Watt/D.P.Leidy, Defining Yongle. Imperial Art in Early Fifteenth Century China,

New York 2005, p.10.

72 After The Sublime Grandeur of Yongle Imperial Bronzes. Hanhai Autumn Auction,

Beijing 2006, p.14 (without reference).

66

few cases, for embroidered silk thangkas, painted scrolls and ritual ob-

jects.

Authentic or later Yongle and Xuande reign marks

Whereas the “Yongle reign mark of the period” as a common terminus

technicus is contemporary with the image, a “Yongle six character

mark”must not necessarily date to the Yongle period, but may have

been added at a later time. While a “genuine” reign mark (of the period)

was always incised on the upper lotus pedestal of the front side of the

image, laterYongle and Xuande marks were engraved either on the

lower rim of the double-lotus or somewhere on the backside of the base

(figs. 45, 49).73 An interesting specific detail of a later incised reign mark

is in at least two cases (figs. 45, 47) a minor variation of the fourth

character from left of the six-character Yongle and Xuande marks,

which does not exactly correspond to the authentic reign marks of the

period. – All Yongle and Xuande marks “of the period” on gilt copper

images are inscribed like “in the Tibetan way” from left to right,

whereas on a few successive gilt copper statues as well as on porcelain

73 The inscribed Yongle mark of the Vajradhara fig.45 is in comparism with authentic

reign marks of an almost surprisingly uniform appearance. – Later Yongle marks were

added to several Tibeto-Chinese style images from the post-Xuande period until the

Qianlong era in the 18th century. See for example an Avalokiteshvara Padmapani

statue (seated in “reverse” position, the six-character mark from right to left) in the

Beijing Palace Museum, dating probably to the Zhenghua period 1465-1487, fig.49,

Iconography and Styles, 2002, vol.II, no.99. Or a 33,2 cm high standing Shakyamuni of

ca. mid-15th century, polychromed zitan wood, with a nine-character inscription Da

Ming Yong Le nian yu gong jing zao, “Respectfully made (zao!) for the altar in the

Yongle reign period of the Great Ming”, Christie’s New York 20.3.2002, no.69. – For

Nepalese style images with later added Yongle and Xuande inscriptions see fig.45 and

48, -At least two statues of the Qianlong period (1736-1795) with Yongle marks exist in

the Beijing Capital Museum(oral information by curator Huang Chunhe, 2.12.2007). –

Xuande marks were occasionally copied for 18th century porcelain or added much later

on to 15th century cloisonné ware like to a dish-shaped cup in the Pierre Uldry Collec-

tion(Zürich) at about 1600 or later, cf. Brinker/Lutz 1989, pl.23 and p.75.

67

and cloisonné since the Xuande era the horizontally written marks are

from right to left.

“Dedicated” (s h i) or just “produced” (z h i) during the early Ming em-

peror’s reign?

The usual Yongle and Xuande reign mark Da Ming Yongle (Xuande)

nian shi on Tibeto-Chinese works of art manufactured between 1407

and 1435 ends with “shi”, “dedicated”, “donated”, or “bestowed”,

which refers to Buddhist imagery such as gilt copper statues and lotus

mandalas, precious fabric banners and, though quite rarely, to important

Buddhist paintings, all coming from the imperial court ateliers. Thus

“shi” is associated with a religious or spiritual meaning of the object. It

is believed by some scholars that images bearing this inscription were

designated generally “for export”, that means produced as gifts for Ti-

betan dignitaries in Tibet or when coming to the imperial court.74 A fine

“imperial quality” statue of Avalokiteshvara Padmapani(?) in the Beijing

Palace Museum (height: 29 cm, fig.49) dating on stylistic grounds to the

circa mid-15th century or slightly later is inscribed from right to left(!)

with a six-character Yongle mark on the lower rim of the double-lotus

“Da Ming Yongle nian z h i ”, which means “produced” instead of

“dedicated” (shi), indicating that the image was not manufactured in the

court ateliers, but some time after the Yongle reign period.75

74 Yongle and Xuande style images without a reign mark would have been manufac-

tured instead for local use at the court or for other temples of esoteric Buddhism in the

capital (Huang Chunhe, personal communication, 2.12.2007), a speculative and pro-

bably disputable theory. Many of the fabric thangkas once given by the Yongle and

Xuande emperors to Tibetan hierarchs and monasteries do not have a reign mark! –

For the rare Yongle reign marks on painted scrolls see Sotheby’s New York, 21.9.2007,

no.33.

75 Iconography and Styles 2002, vol.II, no.99. For Yongle and Xuande reign marks

added to lacquerware of the Hongwu period (1368-98) see Lee King-tsi/Hu Shih-

chang 2001 and 2005. – For imperial reign marks of the early Ming on porcelain, lac-

querware and cloisonné see Chen Kelun 2004, p.28-41; Watt/Leidy 2005, pl.6; Lee

68

Ritual objects of esoteric Buddhism in the Yongle style are either in-

scribed as “dedicated”, shi, when made in the imperial workshops for

Tibetan hierarchs and monasteries, or as “produced”, z h i (or zao)

when they were they were made “in the period” or probably also in

eastern Tibet after prototypes from the imperial ateliers. Only six ri-

tual intruments or sets with a Yongle reign mark from the period and

one ritual axe (and set) with a four-character mark of the Hongwu era

(1368-98) are known.76 Therefore this hypothesis is only temptative and

it cannot be completely ruled out that for these non-figural artefacts

both reign marks were used in the imperial workshops or that some of

them had been “made” (zhi) for local use at the court and thus were

eventually not inscribed as “dedicated” (shi). A very good and highly

significant example of a Tibetan-Buddhist ritual object made for a Bei-

jing temple is a huge butter-lamp of 102 cm in height and in diameter

with a six-character reign mark of the Jingtai emperor (r.1450-57, writ-

ten from right to left) Da Ming Jing tai nian zhi, “produced during the

reign period of the Jingtai emperor”, in a Dutch private collection,

which was shown in the exhibition “The Dalai Lamas” in the World

Museum, Rotterdam, in 2006/2007 (fig. 131). – Even without the Yon-

King-tsi/Hu Shih chang 2001, fig.6b (see also the same authors 2005); Brinker/Lutz

1989, no.1, p.74ff; Garner 1962, pl.10A, 11, 13B,C, 95A,B,C,E.

76 Khaåvâïga, British Museum London, cf.Zwalf 1985, no.307; Bazin 2002, no. 101;

Khaåvâïga, Metropolitan Museum New York, cf. Watt/Leidy 2005, pl.27; ritual fire

spoon, Metropolitan Museum New York, cf. Watt/Leidy 2005, pl.29; Khaåvâïga,

Sotheby’s London 10.7.1973, no.45 (said to come from Tsurphu monastery); ritual

hammer, Sotheby’s London 24.4.1997, no.122; Bazin 2002, no. 109; ritual axe, hammer

and hook, John Eskenazi (London), Arts of Asia, November 1997 (advertisment). For

three of these six objects the Yongle marks are known: cf. Watt/Leidy 2005, pl.27

(“zhi”), idem, pl.29 (“shi”), and Sotheby’s London 24.4.1997, no.122 (“zhi”). For the

only known Hongwu emperor ritual axe (and set) with a four-character mark Hong wu

nian zhi, “made in the Hongwu reign era”, in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts see

Selected Masterpieces of Asian Art. Boston 1992, no.125, with illustration (motives and

style of the inlaid iron, gold and silver work do correspond exactly to the Yongle pe-

riod ritual objects as quoted above). Is this so far the only known reign mark of the

Hongwu emperor on a Tibetan Buddhist work of art?

69

gle and Xuande statues of the Capital Museum (all with reign mark en-

ding with shi) there are at least circa 20 more in Beijing (Palace Museum,

National Museum of China), which most probably have been there

since the early 15th century, once installed in the imperial and “munici-

pal” Tibetan Buddhist shrines of the Ming capital.

Reign mark or multi-character inscription

While six-character reign marks are usually known from Tibetan style

statues made at the court only under the Yongle and Xuande emperor

(r.1403-24, 1425-35), multi character marks and longer inscriptions were

used instead – if there were any – during the successive Zhengtong

(r.1436-49), Jingtai (r.1450-57), and Zhenghua (r.1465-87) eras. The ear-

lier homogenous “corporate identity” production of Buddhist images

for Tibetan lamas and their temples inside and outside the imperial pa-

lace did no longer exist. Despite the revival of esoteric Buddhism under

the Zhenghua emperor the great passion for and the commitment to

“Lamaism” of the early years was fading away towards the second half

of the 15th century. The highquality level of the Golden Age from circa

1407 to 1435 became more and more a stylistic convention when inno-

vation was replaced by re-production combined with an increasing syn-

cretism and sinization in iconography and style (faces!). These art his-

torical trends should be kept in mind for an ongoing discussion of Ti-

beto-Chinese art in the 15th century.

Although quite naturally the Yongle and Xuande standard did not de-

cline from one year to the other two gilt copper images cast according

to their long inscriptions (on the lower rim of the double-lotus and on

the bottom plate!) in the first year of the Zhengtong reign (1436) may il-

lustrate the gradual change of the artistic quality. While the Vajradhara

in the Beijing Capital Museum from the same year (fig. 36) corresponds

grosso modo to the aesthetic criteria of the previous Xuande sculptures

despite the slightly less refined jewelry work, an Avalokitshvara Padma-

pani now in the Rietberg Museum, Zürich, dated by inscription also to

1436 (fig. 50) does not equal anymore to the top level statues bearing

70

the Xuande reign mark.77 According to their inscriptions both images

were just produced in the first year of the Zhengtong reign, however not

or no more in the imperial workshops.

Three other inscribed and dated statues of Bhaiíajyaguru and Shakya-

muni bearing instead of a “reign mark” (ending shi) a longer inscription

(ending zhi) may illustrate on the one side a “non-imperial” classical

Chinese Buddha type of the Yuan and early Ming tradition (Beijing,

Capital Museum, height: 85 cm, dated 1450; art trade, height: 37 cm,

dated 1437, figs. 51, 52), and on the other side the specific “Tibeto-

Chinese” Yongle and Xuande court style in the sense of a revival and of

a stylistic copy several decades later (art trade, height: 37 cm, dated

1467, fig. 53).78

Yongle style figures and related Tibeto-Chinese metal images of the 15th

century don’t normally have a Tibetan inscription or a Tibetan version

of the Chinese multi-character mark. Except the large Yongle-marked

bodhisattva in the Musée Cernuschi, Paris, the only other “bilingual”

statue of that era known to me is a seated Avalokiteshvara with a Yon-

gle reign mark of the period (Da Ming Yong le nian shi) and with a Ti-

betan inscription, rGya nag thugs dam ma byams pa la na mo, on the

backside of the lower rim of the lotus pedestal (Hanhai Spring Auction,

Beijing, 11.5.2008, no.1770, height: 21 cm). This inscription indicates

clearly that the image was made in China and brought very soon to Ti-

bet, but takes for “Maitreya” what actually had been composed as an

Avalokiteshvara holding in his right hand the bottle of ambrosia-water

(Sanskr.: kamaôçalu or kuôçikâ), a characteristic attribute of the Chinese

77 Compare for example von Schroeder 2001, 359C.

78 For the Medicine Buddha in the Capital Museum see Hang Yang/Huang Chunhe

2001, plate 115,116; for the image in the art trade see Hanhai Autumn Auction, Beijing

22.11.2004, no.2507. An interesting and quite significant stylistic difference is docu-

mented by an early Zhenghua Buddha in the Yongle-Xuande tradition, dated 1467, see

Christie’s London 7.11.2006, no.126, and an exquisit very Chinese late Zhenghua

Vairocana dated 1486 in Taipei, cf. Chang Foundation 1993, no.16.

71

Avalokiteshvara-Guanyin, which however, not giving attention to the

small Amitâbha Buddha in the headdress, was misunderstood in the Ti-

betan inscription as bodhisattva Maitreya (“byams pa”). Thus inscription

and iconography make this Avalokiteshvara a unique example among all

existing Yongle reign mark statues of the period (1403-24).

Are there any Yongle and Xuande statues “of the period”

without a reign mark?

The hypothesis that the Yongle and Xuande ateliers would have pro-

duced unmarked images for the ritual needs at the Court and for local

Buddhist temples, while all statues for “export” to Tibet and for Tibetan

dignitaries have been signed with the imperial reign mark, appears to be

questionable. With much probability were all Tibetan style sculptures

coming from the imperial workshops during those thirty years incised

with the reign mark as a kind of first quality label and as a proof of re-

ference and provenance. As far as I can see this imperial “control signa-

ture” was practised for image – making only under these two Ming em-

perors, who are both wellknown for their great personal interest in Ti-

betan Buddhism. This is confirmed by the extant material. And it seems

to be quite difficult to identify a single unmarked image of the usual

court style quality, which would have been manufactured in the Yongle

and Xuande ateliers and not eventually by an ex-Yongle or – Xuande

top artist at sometime after 1435! – Although a fine crowned Akshobhya

in the Chang Foundation (fig. 54) and a crowned Amitâbha in the

Rietberg Museum Zürich79, both without mark, are grosso modo of

equal workmanship and artistic quality compared with the marked Yon-

gle and Xuande statues, the details of the jewelry adorning the upper

79 Chang Foundation 1993, no.3; Uhlig 1995, no.33. Other uninscribed statues of

“court quality” associated with the Xuande period like an Avalokiteshvara at Christie’s

New York 20.3.2002, no.72 (height: 42 cm) indicate rather a Zhengtong period date or

can be attributed to the years after like for example Christie’s New York 19.9.2002,

no.86 (height: 38 cm).

72

body or of the crown are less clear – shaped and finely executed than

with the reign-marked prototypes.

One of these very few uninscribed Yongle style images of “reign mark

quality” is the wellknown crowned Buddha in the Newark Museum,

which because of its considerable size (height: 47 cm) and its acquisition

history may have belonged once to a Buddhist temple in Beijing (fig.

55).80 The missing reign mark, the unusual iconography, the facial fea-

tures and proportions,the more densely and graphically drawn jewelry

work of the crown, and the sheer size of this fine statue indicate allto-

gether a post-Xuande reign date and point out to the Zhengtong (1436-

49) or Jingtai period (1450-57). The design or rather the “drawing” of

the lotus base does not really correspond to the Yongle or Xuande style

and technique. 81

A few monumental gilt copper sculptures of an exceptional court style

quality are unmarked as well (at least in so far since they have no more

the original base): two 51,5 and 58 cm high Mahâkâla statues and a 80

80 Cf. Reynolds et al.1986, p.92-92 (“China, 15th century”); Bills 1994, fig.23: “Xuande

period” (without any arguments); Rhie/Thurman 1996, no.146: “early 15th century”.

Like for most of the Yongle and Xuande statues in the Palace Museum and National

Museum of China (see Iconography and Styles 2002, no.95,99,121; Fo Xiang Yishu

Jingcui 2006, ill.p.89,169,190f., 200-203,224f., 240-243: only one image with traces of

cold-gilding!), which have been always kept in Beijing, the face of the Newark Buddha

was – different from the Tibetan tradition – obviously never cold-gilded. This means

on the one side that the image was produced for local use, and on the other side (no

mark, style!) that in view of its superb quality the missing reign mark would indicate a

post-Xuande date anyway. – For the Akshobhya and Amitâbha see Chang Foundation

1993, no.3, and Uhlig 1995, no.33. Compare also an Avalokiteshvara in the Cleveland

Museum of Art, Bills 1994, fig.25.

81 Though different by its individual style a large ungilt statue of Mañjushri without a

reign mark or inscription in the Beijing Capital Museum is believed to be a “Yongle

image” coming once from a local temple, but appears to represent likewise a post-

Xuande period. – That imperial marks were occasionally erased (in order to incise the

signature of an successive emperor) is known from lacquerware of the Hongwu period,

but I am aware of only a single Yongle Green Tara, whose reign mark has been most

probably effaced, cf. Christie’s New York 19.9.2002, no.85; Lee King-tsi/Hu Shi-chang

2001 and 2005.

73

cm tall Vajrabhairava.82 By their bodily forms, facial features and rich

decorational technique they may likewise date to the circa mid-15th cen-

tury. And it would be difficult to believe that such heavy images had

been carried to Tibet with Buddhist hierarchs and Chinese missions,

particularly at a time when hardly anymore early Ming images of impe-

rial manufacture were brought to Lhasa and beyond. And similarly must

have been commissioned for a Beijing temple a 57 cm large crowned

Amitâbha with a Xuande reign mark of the period, which was offered at

Sotheby’s New York in 1999, a grand masterpiece of early Tibeto-

Chinese Ming art and one of the most important statues of the “Yongle

style” to exist.83

Only two gilt metal statues of large size with a Yongle reign mark have

been preserved: a 145 cm tall bodhisattva datable to circa 1418 (from a

set of eight images) in the Qinghai Provincial Museum at Xining, origi-

nally from Qutan monastery (Tib. Gro tshang rdo rje chang), located in

eastern Qinghai province between Lanzhou and Xining, which was un-

der the direct imperial patronage aspart of the Sino-Tibetan border

strategy since the late 14th century. Probably from the same set once at

Qutan si is the bodhisattva with a six-character Yongle reign mark in the

Musée Cernuschi, Paris (height: 137cm). Both were apparently manufac-

tured in the imperial ateliers in Beijing and then sent to Qutan monas-

tery like the no more existing central Buddha image.84

82 Cf. The Crucible of Compassion 1987, plate 32; sotheby’s New York 26.3.1998,

no.161; Sotheby’s New York 25.3.1999, no.122.

83 Cf. Sotheby’s New York 25.3.1999, no.121 (without the precise transcription of the

reign mark). This is the only monumental marked statue of the Yongle and Xuande pe-

riod to exist, and the earliest statue with the characteristic drapery streamers falling

over the lotus base.

84 For the statue in Xining see: Qutansi. Xining 2000, p.204 (ill.), and Debreczeny 2003,

p.55 and fig.18. – The construction dates of the temple halls, where the image was

once installed, are 1418 and 1427. For the statue in the Musée Cernuschi see von

Schroeder 1981, 151E: “15th/16th century” without reference to the inscription, which

is additionally incised in Tibetan and lan tsha.

74

Did private workshops for these court style images exist at all next to

the imperial factory, especially during the Yongle and Xuande reign pe-

riod to produce (unmarked) less refined statues in the same style? Or

have we to attribute all images of a more modest quality to the later

post-Xuande era?

Tibeto-Chinese art promoted and produced under those early Ming em-

perors can be characterised for political and personal reasons as an ex-

clusive court style, which was limited to the imperial ateliers since the

Yongle emperor’s first direct encounter with Tibetan Buddhism and its

hierarchs in 1407. The relocation of the Ming capital to Beijing was

completed only in 1421 and it is difficult to imagine that in those years

unmarked “second class” images of the same style were produced by

non-imperial workshops outside the court.

The “Yongle Style” after the Golden Age – towards the

second half of the 15th century.

There is still much uncertainty and speculation about the “Yongle le-

gacy” in Tibeto-Chinese sculpture of the 15th and 16th century, mainly

with regard to chronology and a more precise art historical identifica-

tion. It does not surprise that the formative court style of the Yongle

and Xuande period remained the artistic standard and guideline during

the Zhengtong reign era (1436-49) and the years after.

A gradual sinization of the Tibetan style imagery can be noticed in the

successive decades. Different atelier traditions were no longer obliged to

the specific aesthetic formulas as practised under the “tibetophile” early

Ming rulers. Iconographic syncretism and stylistic ecclecticism charac-

terise quite a few images beyond the Indo-Tibetan canon and conven-

tions. The revival of Tibetan Buddhism during the Zhenghua reign pe-

riod (1465-87) is wellknown by a group of dated painted scrolls, but has

not yet been documented for metal figures of the same period. What

was in the second half of the 15th century Tibeto-Chinese sculpture of

the Yongle tradition alike?

75

A “group” of gilt and ungilt statues with several common elements in

motif and style may illustrate here the Yongle heritage in its later phase.

Similar facial proportions and physiognomic features, a rather graphi-

cally drawn garment and rich jewelry style, or the design of the lotus

base and the two overlapping drapery streamers of an Avalokiteshvara

with a Zhenghua six-character mark (fig. 56) 85 can be also found with

some other images dating probably to the same period such as an exqui-

site large Amoghasiddhi (fig. 57) 86 or a Medicine Buddha (fig. 58).87

Quite a few of these statues have a more distinctive Chinese face, which

seems to indicate a greater stylistic variety when some fifty years later

the Yongle canon was no more the exclusive convention in Buddhist art

at the imperial court and beyond.88

The Yongle Legacy in Tibet

Not much better investigated than the Tibetan prototypes of the Yongle

style statues are, so to say on the way back from Beijing to Lhasa, the

Tibetan reflections of these Buddhist images made in the Ming court

ateliers, which were presented to Tibetan monks and monasteries in

considerable quantity at several visits to the court and during at least six

85 Poly Auction, Beijing 1.12.2007, no.979. The (later incised?) “Chenghua six-character

mark” (catalogue text), which cannot be recognized in the illustration, must be incised

on the back of the lotus throne. Note the composite iconography: Amitâbha figure on

top (Avalokiteshvara) vase (Maitreya), book (Manjushri), mudra of his right hand

(Bhaiíajyaguru)!

86 Galerie Jacques Barrère, Paris 2007 (catalogue:“early 15th century”).

87 Galerie Koller, Zürich 22.9.2007, no.104. – Compare two similar statues: Amitâbha,

Lempertz Auction, Köln 7.12.2007, no.725 (48 cm, “17th century”); Avalokiteshvara,

Christie’s Hongkong 3.11.1998, no.1014 (ungilt, 52 cm, “second half of the 15th cen-

tury”).

88 This stylistic variety of the “Yongle heritage” in the second half of the 15th century

can be illustrated by a good number of other statues. See for example Chang Founda-

tion 1993, no.32,33. A statue like no.55 of this collection raises however the question in

how far Yongle style images were either copied in less refined quality outside the

Palace ateliers at the same period or (still) decades later?

76

imperial missions to Tibet between 1408 and 1419.89 Of major impor-

tance for those Sino-Tibetan relations of the early Ming was the Gyantse

principality in southern Tibet, where in 1413 a large imperial delegation

arrived from China, certainly not without silks and statues. And there is

ample evidence for various Yongle style inspirations on the sculptures

and paintings at Pelkhor Chöde monastery(dPal ‘khor Chos sde)90 such

as the elegant draperies of the robes, the long fluttering scarves and the

fine jewelry work just to mention a few characteristics of thoseTibeto-

Chinese images, which one can discover in the Gyantse murals as well.

Thus it cannot surprise to find also Yongle style-influenced Sino-

Tibetan statues made by Newari artists probably in the Sakya milieu at

Gyantse around 1415/30.91 And that Yongle stilistic patterns remained

the guidelines for some of the best Tibetan image-makers until the later

15th century is illustrated by a few exquisite gilt copper monk portrait

figures datable to circa 1479, which were published only recently.92

Among the six metal images of the Yongle era shown in this exhibition,

an 82 cm high (58 cm when open) gilt copper lo tus manda la o f

Va j rabha i rava (as inscribed in Chinese and Tibetan at the top of the

lotus, figs. 59, 60, 61) from the Lhasa museum (formerly kept in the Po-

tala Palace and published in the catalogue under no.75) was supposed to

be shown in the exhibition but was withdrawn for unknown reasons. In-

stead a Cakrasamvara mandala of the same set was given on loan (not

89 Cf. Karmay 1975, p.79; Ricca/Lo Bue 1993, p.19. Buddhist images were brought

with seven Tibetan missions to the Ming court between 1406 and 1417. And no doubt

were many “Yongle images” sent with six Chinese embassies to Tibet between 1408

and 1419 or later on.

90 89 Cf. Henss forthcoming, ch.XI.2; for a few details see also Karmay 1975, p.27,58f.;

Lo Bue 2002, p.198f.; Ricca/Lo Bue 1993, plate 16.

91 See for example a superb Green Tara with silver and copper inlays on the dhoti

(compare similar murals in the Gyantse Kumbum stupa from 1427-39!) in the Rietberg

Museum, Zürich, Uhlig 1995, no.94; Bills 1994, fig.11; or another Tara (or Avalo-

kiteshvara?) at Christie’s New York 21.3.2008, no.652 (“a precursor and prototype for

the Yongle style”).

92 Cf. Sotheby’s New York 19.3.2008, no.304-306 (garment style, lotus pedestal).

77

recorded in the catalogue), whose original cover of the lotus bud (when

closed) is apparently missing and now has been replaced for the exhibi-

tion by the equivalent “umbrella” piece of the wellknown Hevajra man-

dala from the Potala collection, inscribed “Kye rdo rje” (fig. 62). When

preparing the exhibition in 2005, Gregor Verhufen from Bonn Univer-

sity, a member of the organising team, had seen at least two more lotus

mandalas of this series in the Potala’s Li ma lha khang (one without the

original figure of the central deity), which are most probably identical

with those photographed by the reviewer in 1992 (fig. 63), when two

more fragmentarily preserved Yongle lotus mandalas were seen at the

same place. Thus six additional mandalas can be identified now, or all

together nine still existing lotus mandalas of the Potala Yongle reign set,

including the Rakta Yamâri mandala at Sakya monastery and a Heru-

kavajra(?) mandala, which was formerly at Ngor monastery (fig. 64).93

With regard to its partly Gelugpa-related iconography (Vajrabhairava),

these artistic and technical masterpieces may have been donated by the

Yongle emperor (with the six character reign mark at the base) to one of

the Three Great Seats, Ganden, Drepung or Sera, sometime between

Shakya Ye she’s first visit at the imperial court in 1415 and 1425. How-

ever, one cannot rule out the possibility that it was originally made for a

court shrine and only given to Tibet at a later period. These three-

dimensional mandala sculptures have no Tibetan models and document

beyond their formal and technical perfectness – “made on imperial

command” – the highly creative production of Tibetan-Buddhist art un-

der the Yongle reign. To characterise them as “nearly perfect copies” of

Indian Pala period lotus mandalas (Amy Heller in her essay, p.88) would

clearly underestimate their modified and developed individual form and

decoration.

93 Cf. Tucci 1949, vol.I, fig.86 (photo only of the closed lotus bud). Another photo of

the Tucci expedition (1939) in the Museo Nazionale d’Arte Orientale in Rome, Tucci

photographic archives no.6105/24, gives a complete view of this Herukavajra(?), which

in comparism with the Yongle Hevajra mandala in the Potala Palace cannot be exactly

identified.

78

The prototypes of this genius ritual object had been designed, though

smaller in size and of more simple form, in Pala India during the 11th

and 12th century. One of these Indian forerunners was selected for this

exhibition (no.74). One would have prefered, however, a more analo-

gous and richly designed Indian lotus mandala with a higher stalk and

some figural and ornamental decoration as they exist in the Lhasa Jo

khang and elsewhere (fig. 65).94 Two other Yongle lotus mandalas of

exactly of the same size and composition – and of the same workshop –

have survived in complete condition: in the Potala Palace (Hevajra) and

in Sakya monastery (Raktayamâri), here preserved, though almost un-visible, in the southern Phur khang side hall, high up in the shelves for

precious statuary.95 Based on the texts and on iconography there is

94 See also von Schroeder 2001, op.cit., pl.103C and 104C; Precious Deposits 2000,

op.cit., vol.II, no.45 (unknown location in Tibet); and for the most similar Pala proto-

type: Iconography and Styles. Tibetan Statues in the Palace Museum, ed. by the Palace

Museum, Beijing 2002, vol.I, no.36, and especially a 43cm high Indian Cakrasamvara

mandala in the Beijing Palace Museum, Wang Jiapeng 2003 (vol.60), no. 55.

95 von Schroeder 2001, op.cit., pl.349 B, 351B. – I was able to see two fragmentarily

preserved Yongle style lotus mandalas in the Potala Palace on June 16, 2000. For the

information that there would have existed originally a set of 14 Yongle lotus mandalas

I have to thank Prof. Markus Speidel.

A temptative identification of nine (of originally 14?) lotus mandalas of the “Yongle

reign series”:

1. Lhasa, Tibet Museum (formerly Potala Palace): Vajrabhairava; von Schroeder 2001,

350 A/B

2. Lhasa, Potala Palace: Hevajra; von Schroeder 2001, 351 A/B

3. Sakya monastery: Yamari; von Schroeder 2001, 349 B

4. Lhasa, Potala Palace: Cakrasamvara; partly shown in the Museum Villa Hügel exhibi-

tion, but not in the catalogue. Unpublished photo by G.Verhufen

5. Lhasa, Potala Palace; photo M.Henss 1992 and G.Verhufen 2005

6. Lhasa, Potala Palace; photo M.Henss 1992

7. Lhasa, Potala Palace (fragment), recorded by M.Henss 2000

8. Lhasa, Potala Palace (fragment), recorded by M.Henss 2000

9. Ngor monastery: unspecified form of Hevajra (no more extant); photo in G.Tucci,

Tibetan Painted Scrolls. Rome 1949, vol.I, fig.86.

A photograph of the complete mandala exists in the Tucci photographic archives in

Rome, Museo Nazionale d’Arte Orientale, no.6105/24.

79

good reason that these three mandalas and two others still kept in the

Potala Palace (without the original stalk, one of them with the Yongle

reign mark) once have formed a set of fourteen lotus mandalas.

Less spectacular but not much easier to find than a lotus mandala is a

29cm high gilt copper Prâtihârya-stupa with the Yongle reign mark of

the imperial workshops (no.23). Representing a new type of stupa next

to the common Tibetan “Kadampa chörten” of the 13th and 14th cen-

turies, it was probably also inspired by Newari models. Yongle stupas

are very rare and except at least two more of the same set in the Lhasa

museum probably only three other of a more simple ungilt type do ex-

ist.96 The catalogue text does not go beyond a brief general description

of the stupa in general, though one may understand that the author,

Niels Gutschow, being more familiar with the Kathmandu Valley, gives

priority to a less significant Nepalese chörten (no.25).

A monographic publication on the over 300 existing Yongle and Xuan-

de statues and on their various stylistic derivates would be indeed over-

due.And such a project may well come into being under the favorable

auspices of a recently found 32 cm high Precious Elephant with a Yon-

gle reign mark of the period bearing the wish-fulfilling jewel on its back,

one of the seven emblems of royal power symbolising the universal rule

and the strength of the Cakravartin and of the Buddha.

A special and literally eye-catching attraction of the exhibition are three

extraordinary large “Kadampa Chörten” (bKa’ gdams pa mChod

rten) from Mindröl Ling monastery (fig. 66). They represent the most

common bell-shaped mahâparinirvâna stupa type in Tibet, of which hundreds in smaller size are preserved in Tibetan temples (no.24; height:

108, 162, 196 cm). One would have prefered, however, a more detailed

catalogue text on this characteristic metal chörten type instead of a

largely general description of the Buddhist stupa. A still taller copy of

96 Cf. Tibet Museum 2001, p.96, fig.3 (height: 28 cm; see also Jinse Baozang 2001,

p.188), and p.180/181, fig.1 and 4 (height: 28,5,cm); The Potala 1996, p.115.

80

these masterpieces of Tibetan metal casting has survived at sNye thang

sGrol ma lha khang (height: 322 cm), the residence where Atisha, the

father of the Kadampa school and credited with the introduction of the

stupa cult in Tibet, spent the last ten years of his life. And it was exactly

this type of brass reliquary which, following closely earlier models of the

Indian Pala period, was successively called “Kadampa chörten”.

With the exception of some 11th or 12th century stupas from India and

their early Tibetan copies, which are characterised by more elongated

proportions and by a different composition of the main body, all Ka-

dampa stupas were designed in the same way. This does not allow a

more precise dating for the great bulk of these reliquaries than to circa

1250-1350. And so far we don’t know until when the stupas of this type

were produced. An early date of the Mindröl Ling stupas to the 11th or

12th century as suggested in the catalogue text (by Niels Gutschow) is

unlikely; it seems that this very type with its rather “canonical” formal

vocabulary did not exist before the 13th century. A date to circa late

13th century or more probably to the 14th is indeed supported by some

figural engravings on one of the five other stupas in Mindröl Ling,

which is exactly of the same type and style as the three exhibited ones

(fig. 67).

The art of Densa Thil

Among the gilt copper statues of specific importance with regard to

provenance and style deserves special attention the magnificent four-

armed female deity no.39, possibly one of the Pâramitâs and correctly attributed to a Nepalese artist working for Tibetan patrons (fig.68).

From a stylistic estimate the first half of the 15th century would be more

convenient than a date to the 14th century. There is hardly any doubt

that this image wirh inlaid semi-precious stones comes originally from

Densa Thil (gDan sa mThil), the principal religious centre of the Pag-

modrupa (Phag mo gru pa) dynasty, then the leading power in Tibet af-

ter the decline of the Sakya rule in the 14th century, located some 20 km

east of Tsethang high above the northern banks of the Tsangpo river.

81

Like several other statues of the same style attributable to this once

most important Kagyüpa monastery, which “among the abbeys of Tibet

possessed the largest wealth” 97, this image now kept in the Tibet Mu-

seum at Lhasa, must have adorned one of the eight multi-storeyed tashi-

gomang (bKra shis sgo mang) chörten, the “auspicious [stupa] with

many doors (or images).98 Those unique funeral and commemorative

reliquary shrines of gilt repoussé and cast copper were praised in 1882

by the Indian pandita Sarat Chandra Das (1849-1917) as “beautiful silver

and copper chörten, the finest specimens of such metal work I have

seen”.99 Densa Thil and its exceptional monuments were completely

destroyed during the “Cultural Revolution” (1966) in one of the most

disastrous actions against Tibet’s cultural heritage.

A considerable quantity of statues and fragments was successively

brought to Beijing, where many of them have been kept since then in

the Capital Museum to be partially displayed for the first time in the new

building since 2005 (with an unknown number still in storage). A few

single images were given to the Potala Palace or to the Jokhang and

Ramoche temples.100 Other turned up on the art market in the mid-

1970s and many more within the last ten years, which were either be-

longing to those memorial chörten or manufactured in the workshops at

Densa Thil and Drigung (‘Bri gung) monasteries.101 – According to my

97 Pan chen bSod nams grags pa, Deb ther dmar po gsar ma (from 1529), cf. Tucci

1971, p.204.

98 See on Densa Thil monastery von Schroeder 2001, vol.II, p.1006-1011; and with

more details; Czaja 2006, and Henss forthcoming, ch.VI.9. From the totally 18 memo-

rial stupas at Densa Thil only 8 were actually of the multi-door sKu ‘bum or bKra shis

sgo mang type as Olaf Czaja kindly informed me.

99 Das 1902, p.227.

100 See von Schroeder 2001, 260A, 260D, 262A. In 2005 I discovered five lokapâla

statues (ca. 70 cm in height) of the Densa Thil style in the former residence room

(gZim chung) of the 14th Dalai Lama on the upper floor of the Ramoche in Lhasa.

101 For a selection of single seated statues: Oriental Art, 1975, no.3, p.215 (and von

Schroeder 1981, 111E); Orientations, March 1993 (advertisment E.Abraham) and Sep-

tember 2005 (advertisment L.Coyle); Spink 1995, no.17; Sotheby’s New York

82

own estimates at least over 45 individual sculptures of the proper Densa

Thil style or from Densa Thil monastery respectively have survived, not

including nearly 15 fragments of the lower protector frieze of the tashi-

gomang depicting Nâgarâja, Mahâkâla, Vaiæravaôa, Râhu, or Palden

Lhamo, another 15 rectangular panels with groups of dancing devi-

musicians from the next higher register, and an unknown quantity of

caryatid pillars.102 – The individual statues can be attributed to the origi-

nal upper storeys of the stupa-like reliquary monuments once illustrating

two multi-figured Vajradhâtu and Guhyasamâja mandalas, and on top a Kagyü lineage assembly with Vajradhara, siddhas, dâkinis, Indian and Tibetan masters (fig. 126). A temptative reconstruction of these promi-

nent stupa architectures would result in a nine-storeyed plan:

1. adamantine base of circular plan with a design of alternative vajras

and jewels.

2. protector frieze of circular plan with 24 images of Nâgarâja,

Vaiæravaôa, Palden Lhamo, Mahâkâla, Râhu, etc., each enclosed by

round-shaped foliate scroll tendrils.

3. double lotus of circular plan with separate statues of the four

lokâpalas in front.

4. frieze with dancing offering goddesses on square plan.

5. frieze of the Buddhas of the four directions on square plan, the

central image surrounded by many smaller Buddhas of the same

iconographic type.

6. Vajradhâtu mandala frieze on square plan.

22.9.2000, no.73; Christie’s New York 19.9.2001, no.115; 21.2007, no.121ff.; Christie’s

Paris 13.6.2007; Uhlig 1995, nos.31, 32.

102 These figures are preliminary estimates - and partly tentative attributions - of so far

published images (in quite a few cases in auction sale catalogues or as advertisment

only) or of those, which are on display in temples (Ramoche) and museums (Capital

Museum, Beijing).

83

7. Guhyasamâja mandala frieze on square plan.

8. Kagyü lineage assembly with 22 statues of Vajradhara, siddhas,

dâkinîs, Indian and Tibetan masters over an intermediary single lotus

frieze on top of the actual tashigomang body.

9. relic stupa containing the corporal remains of the Densa Thil ab-

bot (bKra shis ‘od ‘bar).103

Among the preserved single images associated here with Densa Thil are

twelve multi-armed goddesses (figs. 68, 69, 70, 71, 72), six dâkinîs

(Vajrâvarâhi)104, five bodhisattvas (figs. 73, 74), three tatâgathas (figs. 75, 76), eight other deities, all between 26 and 35 cm in height, and nine

lokapâla guardians standing once at the base of the tashigomang, all be-tween 68 and 73 cm in height (figs. 77, 78a, 78b). At least two of these

cosmic protectors can be identified with the original statues at Densa

Thil, of which a few photographs were fortunately made by Francesco

Mele during the Tucci expedition in 1948: the Vaiæravaôa now in the

Lhasa Ramoche and a Virûpâkía in the Capital Museum in Beijing. The

repoussé plaque with a Vairochana Buddha and two standing bodhisatt-

vas just below these lokapâla statues on the Mele photo (fig. 78b) is now in a Paris private collection (height: ca. 100 cm).

Especially interesting are the numerous tantric Buddhist goddesses,

which point out to individual iconographic programs realised only at

Densa Thil.105

103 See Henss forthcoming, ch.VI.9, and for a reconstruction drawing of a Densa Thil

tashigomang stupa and for a photograph from 1949 Czaja 2006, figs.4 and 8.

104 A dâkinî statue in the Rietberg Museum at Zürich is said to have come from Densa

Thil, cf. Uhlig 1995, no.109.

105 See for the multi-armed goddesses: von Schroeder 1981, 114D and E; also von

Schroeder 2001, 260A, B and D, 262C; Spink 1995, no.17; Rossi 1994, no.22; Rossi

2007, no.9; Christie’s New York 19.1.2001, no.115. For the dakinis for example: von

Schroeder 1981, 120F; Sotheby’s New York 30.11.1994, no.304; Uhlig 1995, no.109;

Huntington/Bangdel 2003, no.111; Christie’s New York 20.6.2006, no.130. A fragmen-

tary dakini of the same style, which reportedly has come from Densa Thil (now private

collection), was published by Stoddard 2002, p.446. – For the surviving lokapala

84

The presence of Newari craftsmen at the Densa Thil ateliers is not only

confirmed by style, but also documented by inscriptions in devanâgâri on at least one of the surviving gilt copper relief plaques.

Outstanding for its supreme quality among the tantric images and

closely related to the Densa Thil style is the gilt copper Vajravârâhi dâkinî from the Potala Palace, no.59, probably the ultimate masterpiece

of this type. This 15th century image, a grand figural and ornamental

tantric highlight of dynamic movement and compositional balance, has

been iconographically analysed in all details by Andreas Kretschmar,

whose comprehensive texts for many other entries are among the most

essential contributions to the exhibition’s catalogue-handbook.

Great masterpieces of religious art are not only the result of individual

craftsmanship, but also subject to specific periods in history. Thus the

question might be raised (and allowed): w h e n in the history of Tibetan

Buddhist art was the iconographic subject and the artistic motif of a

dancing dâkinî represented at its best in the most impressive and inspi-

ring way with regard to the spiritual essence and aesthetic beauty of the

image? There can be no doubt that it was during the 14th and 15th cen-

tury when Nepalese and Tibetan artists produced the most dynamic and

elegant statues of these divine sky-wanderers of supernatural power and

secret knowledge.

Another eye-catching masterpiece of the artistically high-ranking selec-

tion for the Essen and Berlin exhibition is, in stunning comparison with

its early miniature-sized Nepalese counterpart no.33, a 78 cm large gilt

copper statue of the thousand-armed and eleven-headed Ava l o -

k i t e shv a r a lent by the Norbulingka Palace collection in Lhasa and

used as the cover illustration of the catalogue (no.34; fig. 79). The thou-

guardians see: von Schroeder 1981, 148S; TheCrucible of Compassion and Wisdom

1987, plate 27; Christie’s New York 23.3.1999, no.109; www.himalayanart.com,

no.59835; and five statues in the Ramoche in Lhasa.

85

sand arms - eight main arms and the seventeen concentric rows of in

fact (!) 992 individual arms make the symbolically countless hands and

the unlimited compassion of this all-embracing saviour of mankind, of

the “one-ten-headed” (ekâ daæa mukha) bodhisattva, indeed physically

visible! This brilliant and unparalleled image represents later Tibetan

artisanry of the 18th century at its very best. I do not however recognize

“Sino-Tibetan” characteristics as they are suggested in the catalogue.

The drapery style of the dhoti and of the scarf laid around the neck

takes up a three-hundred years long Tibetan tradition and cannot be

associated with contemporary Tibeto-Chinese motives and influences.

For those connoisseurs and scholars whose interest in Buddhist art goes

beyond the early periods, the Norbulingka Avalokiteshvara represents

one of the most exceptional images in Tibetan art history, both in aes-

thetics and sheer technical craftsmanship.

Among the later thangkas in the exhibition, two examples may be se-

lected here for their artistic quality and documentary value. The exqui-

site painted scroll of an unidentified Nyingma yogin from the Potala

Palace, possibly a manifestation of Guru Rinpoche seated in a superbly

drawn scenery with rocky mountains, waterfalls, and blossoming trees, is

one of the finest “sacred landscape paintings” to exist in Tibet (no.44).

While its exact iconography still requires further research, the style

might be associated here with the New Menri tradition (sMan bris gsar

ma) of the 17th century painter Chos dbyings rGya mtsho, whose genius

artistry has been described in a Tibetan art manual as “a festival deligh-

ting gods and men”.106 The specific painting style of the landscape and

of the figures can be compared with a thangka of Sakya Pandita in the

Newark Museum (USA), which belongs into the same artistic context

and may date to the late 17th or to the early 18th century.107

A painted scroll depicting Tashi Lhünpo monastery (no.84) belongs to

the type of dKar chag thang ka, a visual pilgrim’s guide to the foremost

holy places inTibet. The three red-coloured buildings with the golden 106 D. Jackson, A History of Tibetan Painting, Vienna 1996, p.222.

107 See Jackson 1996, op.cit., plate 46.

86

roofs are wrongly identified in the catalogue text. Correct is, from right

to left: mausoleum of the First Panchen Lama Chos kyi rGyal mtshan

(1570-1662), of the Second Panchen Lama bLo bzang Ye shes (1663-

1737), and of the Third Panchen Lama bLo bzang dPal ldan Ye shes

(1738-1780). Thus the painting must date to the period of the Fourth

Panchen Lama bLo bzang bsTan pa’i Nyi ma (1782-1853), which means

sometime before 1853, when the successive later tomb buildings of the

Fourth, Fifth (d.1882), Sixth (d.1937) and Seventh Panchen Lama

(d.1989) and the tall shrine for the giant Maitreya statue from 1916 did

not yet exist in the western section.

The enclosed palace complex on the lower part of the painting appears

to be the earliest representation of the former Panchen’s summer resi-

dence (now ruined), which was replaced by a new residential building

for the late Seventh Panchen Lama in the 1950s. The grand Shigatse

dzong of the 17th century to the right, once the most impressive go-

vernmental fortress in Tibet and completely destroyed during the “Cul-

tural Revolution”, has been completely reconstructed (2005-2007).

The f ive manda la s shown in the exhibition (no. 68, 72, 73, 76, 78)

are clearly below the high quality standard of many other objects. Ad-

mittedly only very few of the much appreciated earlier Sakya and Ngor

style paintings have survived in Tibet (though no longer in ritual use),

while by far most of the important pre-16th century mandala thangkas

are now in western public and private collections. However at least two

exceptional 15th and 16th century Kalacakra mandalas of that tradition

are preserved in the Potala Palace and in the Lhasa Tibet Museum (figs.

127, 128). And many fine mandala paintings of the 17th through 19th

centuries are kept in the Potala Palace, which were published only re-

cently.108 The only remarkable painting in the exhibition is an 18th cen-

tury Kalacakra mandala of the Sakya tradition (Potala Palace, no.76)

108 See for over 150 mandala thangkas in the Potala Palace: The Celestial Palace of the

Gods of Tantric Vajra Yana, ed. by the Tibetan Administrative Office of the Potala,

Beijing 2004.

87

with lovely sceneries depicting the Shambhala kings and the transmis-

sion by an (unidentified) Sakya hierarch and his lineage predecessors.

An iconographic rarity with an interesting historical identity and prove-

nance is a thangka illustrating 292 “calendar deities” (with their in-

scribed names) associated with the different months and days according

to the Kalacakra mandala (no.77). Together with a second image of the

same subject, this unique cultural treasure is preserved in Shalu monas-

tery, for whose hermitage community Ri phug it was painted around or

soon after 1568 and dedicated to the 15th Shalu abbot mKhyen brtse

dBang phyung (1524-1568) as we can read in the inscription on the

back. What might have been regarded as a curiosity in subject and form

and may be overlooked from an art historian’s eye-view in terms of ar-

tistic quality and aesthetic attractiveness, was luckily realised and se-

lected by the organisers and thoroughfully analysed in the catalogue by

Gregor Verhufen. This unusual painting shown and published here for

the first time makes an important addition to the iconography and cul-

tural history of the Kalacakra Tantra.

Whether a whole room in the museum displaying s i x med i c a l

thangka s of a 20th century replica set and eight statues of the Medi-

cine Buddha and 29 pages in the catalogue dedicated to Tibetan medi-

cine would necessarily be part of an exhibition with special focus on

highranking Tibetan religious art might be disputable. And do over 95%

of the catalogue buyers need and read such a detailed monographic

study when appropriate books for advanced interest are available?

As a chapter of Tibetan cultural history and of a still existing paramedi-

cinal healing system and practice, it could well be a challenge for exci-

ting exhibition didactics and presentation with a greater variety of re-

lated objects and documentation. However medical science has been

presented in the Villa Hügel museum as “art” within a predominantly

aesthetic context and thus came out quite boring. An hommage à la

mode since the medical wonders of the Himalayas are currently held in

“alternative” esteem, far away from its socio-religious and spiritual basis

and context. The lengthy catalogue text by Petra Maurer does not men-

88

tion at all (except in a brief end-note on p.618) what should be regarded

as a priority question in this exhibition: are there any paintings of the

original late 17th century set still preserved? What about the historical

identity of these 20th century replicas lent by the Lhasa museum? A few

additions and comments may fill the gaps.

The original series of 79 (not “77”) thangkas was painted under the su-

pervision of Regent Sangye Gyatso (Sangs rgyas rGya mtsho, 1653-

1705) between 1687 and 1703 in order to illustrate the medical teachings

according to the standard work of the Four Tantras (rGyud bzhi) and

it’s commentary, the Blue Beryll (Vaidurya sngon po). 60 paintings of

this set were completed in 1688, the year of the publication of the Blue

Lapis Lazuli109, and the other 19 paintings were added in 1703. When in

1916 the new Mentsikhang (sMan rtsis khang) was built, 31 of the origi-

nal thangkas existed and still do (fig. 80, 81). The other 48 missing

images were repainted in 1923.

Three complete sets exist in the modern Mentsikhang (including the 31

original paintings), in the Tibet Museum in Lhasa, and in the museum at

Ulan Ude (Burjatia). Replica sets are known to have been copied for

teaching purposes in 1918 and 1933. This vast number of repaintings –

not regarding any eventual further copies – makes the chronological

identification of all these thangkas quite difficult. Today altogether 130

medical paintings exist in the Lhasa Mentsikhang and 164 in the Tibet

Museum. Very little is known about their practical use. According to

some historical Tibetan texts the paintings were shown and explained in

the medical school monastery on the lCags po ri every year during the

summer vacation period for seven days.110

109 In his biography of the Sixth Dalai Lama Sangye Gyatso mentions that he made 62

medical thangkas illustrating the Vaidurya sngon po (C.Cüppers, sDe srid Sangs rgyas

rgya mtsho’s vai Duurya g.ya’ sel and the Iconometrical Handbook cha tshad kyi bris

dpe dpyod ldan yid gsos. Sino-Tibetan Buddhist Art Studies, Third Intern. Conference

on Tibetan Archaeology and Arts, Beijing 2006, Abstracts, p.20).

110 M. Henss, The Cultural Monuments of Tibet, vol.I, chapter 6.2, forthcoming. For

further details on the medical Thangkas F.Meyer, Introduction à l’étude d’une série de

peintures médicales crée à Lhasa au 17e siècle, in: Tibet. Civilisation et Société, Paris

89

37 ritual objects (catalogue entries) were selected in order to illustrate

the various other furnishings of a Tibetan temple, all provided with

highly informative texts about their respective rituals and textual

sources, mainly written by Andreas Kretschmar and Geshe Pema Tser-

ing.

Two offering lamps (“butter lamps”, mchod me) are especially interes-

ting for their inscriptions and provenance. No.104 from the Potala

Palace, of pure gold and 33 cm in height, was donated by the Regent ad

interim Ngag dbang ‘Jam dpal bde legs rGya mtsho (1723-1777), better

known as Demo Tulku (r.1757-1777), on behalf of the Lhasa govern-

ment for the tomb stupa of the Seventh Dalai Lama. No.105 from the

Norbulingka Palace properties, of silver and 31 cm in height, was pre-

sented in 1897 “to the great leader of this (Samsara) world”, the Thir-

teenth Dalai Lama.

An extraordinarily precious item is the 77 cm long kha åvâ ïga iron

staff from the Potala Palace, whose general ritual function and meaning

has been excellently described by Andreas Kretschmar (no.117:

15th/16th century; figs. 82a and b, 83), but its artistic value and histori-

cal attribution are not properly discussed. The octagonal shaft with the

fine scroll work ornament in damascened technique of gold and silver

inlays, which became known in Yuan dynasty China from the Islamic

world, recalls several comparable ritual implements in type, style, and

technique some ritual implements made at the early Ming court under

the Yongle and Xuande emperors, all great masterpieces of Tibetan-

Buddhist ritual art objects, a so far hardly researched field, which would

deserve a proper documentation.111 It is the only known Ming period

1990, p.29-58, and F. Meyer in Parfionovitch et al.1992. For the lCags po ri medical

school in general: R.Gerl/J.Aschoff, Der Tschagpori in Lhasa. Medizinhochschule und

Kloster. Ulm 2005.

111 For other ritual objects of the early imperial Ming style see R.Thurman/D. Weldon,

Sacred Symbols. The Ritual Art of Tibet. New York 1999, nos.62, 63, 64 (with further

references) V. Zwalf, Buddhism. Art and Faith. London/New York 1985, p.210, no. 307

(British Museum, with Yongle reign mark); Sotheby’s London 10.7.1973, no. 45 (with

Yongle reign mark; said to come from Tsurphu monastery); advertisment John Eskenazi

90

khaåvâïga with a complete vajra at the top, while the few other existing

objects of a similar style have this emblem split off into an upper and a

lower part at both ends of the staff. Although the inlay work of the shaft

suggest a Yongle dynasty date the facial features of the heads and certain

details of the vase and of the vajra may possibly indicate a later manu-

facture. The ‘Phags pa script on the upper end of the handle, ma pham

tshe rtang, cannot be properly translated (“the Khaåvâïga of undestruc-

tible longevity”?).

An unreadable inscription in ‘Phags pa characters may raise the question

whether all these “Tibeto-Chinese” ritual objects were solely manufac-

tured at the imperial ateliers in China as generally believed or also pro-

duced “on imperial command” and copied in the famous metalwork

centers like Derge in eastern Tibet, where, far away from the sophisti-

cated and intellectual court style milieu, such inscriptions might have

been occasionally misunderstood.112 Was the Potala Khaåvâïga after all,

one of the best and the largest to exist, manufactured in the imperial

workshops during the early Ming period? According to an oral tradition

at Tsurphu monastery the Fifth Karmapa is said to have received six

khaåvâïgas from Ming Chengzu at the time of his visit at the court in

Nanjing. According to Nik Douglas, the present Karmapa believes that

the Khaåvâïga (with a Yongle reign mark) in the British Museum is one

of this group (I thank for this information John Clarke, London).

in Arts of Asia, November 1997; Sotheby’s London 24.4.1997, no.122; Christie’s New

York 17.9.1998, no.98; Christie’s New York 23.3.1999, no.108; Christie’s New York

22.3.2000, no.106; Watt/Leidy 2005, op.cit., plate 27 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New

York; inscribed Yongle nian zhi, “made in the Yongle era”), see here also p.75,77; Hanhai

Autumn Auction, The Sublime Grandeur of Yongle Imperial Bronzes, Beijing 2006, p.56-

71. For the Khaåvâïga in the British Museum see also the chapter by John Clarke in D. La

Rocca (Ed.), Warriors of the Himalayas. Rediscovering the Arms and Armor of Tibet.

New York 2006, p.27.

112 Compare Watt/Leidy 2005, op.cit., p.77, with reference to a partially illegible Chi-

nese reign mark inscription on a ritual axe in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Compare,

however, for the volute scroll ornament at the upper end of the handle and for the

more “modern” looking elements like the skull and the vase similar ritual objects at-

tributed to the Yongle era such as pl.28 and 29 (top).

91

Recent publications on Tibetan tsha tsha votif clay tablets have docu-

mented a wealth of so far unknown material, especially of the early pe-

riods, predominantly from Pala India and Kashmirian Western Tibet.113

The iconographic and stylistic peculiarities of these newly discovered

and generally underestimated miniature sculptures still await further re-

search for the history of Buddhist art in Tibet. Many of them were

found at Tholing and beyond, the monastic and political center of the

early Gu ge Kingdom in the 11th and 12th century. And it is to this

“Kashmirian period” and area of Tibet’s religious and artistic history

that four of the five exhibited tablets of this portable ars multiplicata

have to be attributed (nos.109-112: “13th-14th century”). A good num-

ber of iconographic types of western and central Tibetan statuary have

survived only in these “minor arts”. Other questions have remained un-

answered so far: how long, for example, were the individual metal molds

used for the casting of the clay “prints”? Would 11th century molds still

have been served to produce tsha tsha images in the 16th century or

later? And consequently how many tablets found and preserved in stu-

pas are in fact much later “editions” of the original cast form, from

which such clay prints may have been made? A comprehensive Western

language book on this attractive and so richly available material would

be overdue indeed!

Less convincing is the selection of eleven mostly secular artefacts

within the section “Religious Rulers: Insignia and objects of daily use”

(p.427ff.). With the exception of the two golden seals (gser tham) be-

stowed by the Yongzheng emperor between 1723 and 1735 upon the

“All-knowing Vajradhara, the ruler over the highly meritorious Western

Spheres, Lord of the entire teachings of the Buddha in this world”, the

Seventh Dalai Lama (no.85), and by the Kangxi emperor on the Second

Panchen Lama bLo bzang Ye shes (in 1713, no.86), these exhibits ap-

113 See especially Zhongguo Zangchuan Fojiao Diashu, vol.4 (A Collection of Tibetan

Buddhist Sculpture. Votif Images in Moulded Clay). Beijing 2001; Xizang Minjian

Yishu Congshu Tuomo Nisu (Tibetan Folk Art Series. Sculptures), Chongqing 2001.

92

pear as a kind of sampler without a proper context. A horse saddle, a

single piece of a necklace ga’u, a Korean ceramic bowl brought to Tibet

– and described on three full pages in the catalogue –, an inkpot and

some writing utensils are rather lost in the exhibition and do not allow

some deeper insight into the life and works of the leading hierarchs of

Tibet!

The 664 page exhibition catalogue with 438 excellent colour and 17

black-and-white illustrations (by the Chinese photographer Yan

Zhongyi) is only available in the clothbound German edition. Text con-

tributions were provided by 25 international scholars – who should have

been introduced by a short profile of their scholarly data -, predomi-

nantly with regard to the 138 entries (462 pages without endnotes and

appendices) written by Andreas Kretschmar, Bernadette Bröskamp, and

Gregor Verhufen (Cologne and Bonn Universities) for iconography and

rituals, style and art history, and religious history and literature respec-

tively. Many text entries were compiled in a joint venture by two or even

three authors, a reasonable concept in order to present a maximum of

information and research for each exhibited item. The careful editing

was done with much expertise and concern by Andreas and Marit

Kretschmar under the editorial management of the leading scientific or-

ganisers, Prof. Yeong-hee Lee-Kalisch and her assistant Dr. Juliane

Noth, both from Berlin University.

With respect to the scholarly a n d general reader, a satisfying “middle

way” was found for the transliteration, transcription, and phonetic spell-

ings of the Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Chinese names and terms. For the

endnotes grouped in 29 sections, one would have prefered a slightly

easiergoing arrangement to have access to the references more quickly.

The 25 page bibliography with separate sections for Tibetan, Sanskrit,

and Chinese historical texts and modern publications offers more than a

“selection” only and allows a largely complete or at least very compre-

hensive survey on literary sources and current research related to the

exhibited objects and general essays. Selected relevant bibliographical

sources are added to the individual text of each entry (missing for nos.

93

14, 53, 55, 81). An eight page glossary on Buddhist terms and symbols

was professionally compiled for “advanced studies” by Andreas

Kretschmar. A “Synchronoptical Survey on Tibetan Buddhism, 500-

1940 AD” (K.H.Golzius and G.Verhufen) comprises the whole of Asia

instead of concentrating on Tibet, India and China.

The sheer physical weight of the four kilogram book goes much beyond

what an exhibition catalogue should primarily be: a portable assistance

to the visitor when looking at the original artefacts. Nobody will carry

around in the exhibition a 662 page heavy volume, which even at home

is a challenge for the “general reader” (98% of all visitors?), when he has

to go through over half a dozen of pages in order to check a single ob-

ject. A pleasure for the specialist, a burden for the great “rest” of those

who bought this impressive and substantial exhibition handbook? Are

seven pages on a modest Vajravarahi painting (no.58) or eight pages on

a Vajrakila “black painting” (no.57) – more than Erberto Lo Bue’s ex-

cellent and very readable general essay on Tibetan painting was allowed

to cover (p.90-95) – appropriate for an exhibition catalogue, which is

basically not supposed to be a pure academic publication for a handful

of insiders? And would extensive monographic studies with 57 endnotes

for an even more specific circle of interested readers make the standard

for over 10,000 catalogues buyers such as the most detailed study on the

indeed amazing Indian Pala period manuscript no.26? Or 20 pages

about the Mahabodhi temple replica and three different types of Tibetan

mchod rten, mostly describing the “Stupa in general” instead of the in-

dividual type (no.23, p.196-215)?

The detailed and nearly “complete” iconographic surveys on Manjushri

(no.31) and on the Eleven-headed Avalokiteshvara (no.33) with scho-

larly excursions into the field of specific rituals are no doubt admirable

and brilliant examples of special insight. But when reading and writing

for this review only from a purely academic perspective one would have

preferred a “normal” catalogue of maximum circa 350 pages a n d , as a

separate second volume comparable to the two-volumes “Die Götter

des Himalaya” (The Gods of the Himalayas, published in German only,

94

Munich 1989) of the former Gerd-Wolfgang Essen collection of Ti-

betan art (now Basel, Museum der Kulturen), a scholarly reference book

in close connection with the “main volume”.

Quite a few catalogue texts present very precise and informative icono-

graphic descriptions, but nothing about style or technique: nos.16, 17

(with a full biography of the historical Buddha), and 44, 45, 46, 67, 76,

no.43 without a word on the appliqué technique no.52 with a purely

general text on Hayagrîva, nos.54, 62, 66, 81, 83 without any specific reference to the exhibited statue, or no.117 without a proper description

of the metal technique. Even exhibits of minor importance are docu-

mented on three or four pages such as the Hayagriva statuette no.52, the

prayer wheel no.91, or the Kalaæa vase no.114. Lengthy paragraphs which are not always a source of great scholarly inspiration or which

may well have their place in academic journals like, for example, the

middle section of the mahâsiddha text no.41 have “survived” without

any critical interference and textual reduction by the “managing editor”

of the catalogue. One can well understand the scholarly ambition and

temptation of the individual contributor “to write as much and detailed

as possible”, however less the “supreme editorial board”, where at a cer-

tain point one may have lost control over the extensively growing

printed matter.

This generosity towards the authors of the catalogue texts proved some

disadvantage to those, who had delivered, mostly later on, the general

essays (100 pages of totally 664). Several of them were even shortened,

partly in a considerably disproportional way.

In view of the mostly extensive descriptions of each entry, the short

“summary” printed in bold type at the beginning is very helpful for a

quick overview.

In association with the many thoroughly researched texts on the exhi-

bited artefacts, the iconographical identifications and art historical attri-

butions are largely very informative and correct. So are the datings of

each object, to which only a few suggestions may be added here. The

gilt copper Guhyasamâja-Akíobhyavajra no.56, “18th century”, must be

95

dated on quite evident stylistic grounds to the late 15th or early 16th

century (lotus petal design, garment style, jewelry forms). The Yama

no.66, “ca.16th century”, is a characteristic Tibeto-Chinese metal image

of the second half of the 15th century (design of the double lotus and

jewelry). The copper statue of a Tibetan dharma king no.80, “11th-12th

century”, was cast like the similar figure of King Songtsen Gampo

(no.81) in the 14th century (see text above), and the votif clay tablets

(tsha tsha) from western Tibet nos.109-112, “13th-14th century”, repre-

sent in fact the early Kashmir style of that area during the 11th or 12th

century.

Twelve i n t roduc to r y e s s a y s comprise the following subjects: Fun-

damentals of Buddhism (A. Kretschmar and Te’u Chen Dragpa, Köln),

Drepung – a monastic institution (G. Dreyfus, Williamstown, USA),

The Potala – palace and monastery (Paphen, Lhasa), Pilgrimage in Tibet

(T. Huber, Berlin), Tibetans on the Silk Road (M. Yaldiz, Berlin), Sacred

Scriptures in Tibet (Sonam Wangden, Lhasa), Tantric Rituals – an intro-

duction (U. Bräutigam, Düsseldorf), Mandala – form, function and

meaning (C. Luczianits, Wien), Foreign Styles in Tibetan Sculpture (A.

Heller, Nyon), Tibetan Painting (E. Lo Bue, Bologna), Tibetan Buddhist

Art – donors, sponsors, artisans (H. Stoddard, Paris), Iconometry in Ti-

betan Buddhist Art (M. Henss, Zürich).

In association with the principal artefacts shown in the Villa Hügel ex-

hibition, thangkas and statues – usually the most popular and attractive

objects in Tibetan art – the masterful general survey on Tibetan Bud-

dhist painting by Erberto LoBue is especially noteworthy: not written

with the ambition to deliver some “latest research” for an academic pa-

per, but as an introduction for the general reader and as a concise over-

view for the specialist (p.90-95).

Amy H e l l e r ’s very informative “cultural history” of Buddhist sculp-

ture in Tibet is based on rich material, latest studies, and helpful refe-

rences to the exhibited objects (p.80-89). In correspondence to the his-

torical geography the earliest inspirations for Tibetan statuary of the 7th

through 9th centuries came quite naturally from Central Asia and Nepal.

96

Silverware like the famous “wine jug” of Songtsen Gampo in the Lhasa

Jokhang or a partly gilded cup in the Cleveland Museum of Art and a

bowl with a rich ornamented decoration (figs. 84, 85) follows so closely

foreign designs and figural styles that their origin is still under dispute:

made in Tibet after probably Sogdian models or brought from the

northern Silk Routes to Tibet?

As we know since Roberto Vitali’s publication of the life-size bodhisatt-

vas at Keru Lhakhang to the East of Samye in his “Early Temples in

Central Tibet” (1990), these earliest monumental clay statues to have

survived in Tibet recall several stylistic elements which can be associated

with contemporary images and ornaments at Dunhuang or with the

largely lost treasures of Khotan. Was the style of Kashmir ever a “for-

eign” style in Tibetan sculpture? Obviously this distinctive artistic lan-

guage had no formative influence on the sculpture and painting in the

Central Regions, whereas in western Tibet it represented the indigenous

art tradition of “Greater Kashmir” between Srinagar, Gilgit and Tho-

ling, of which a regional “dialect” of its own developed in the course of

the 11th and 12th century by local Tibetan ateliers next to artists from

Kashmir working now in the easternmost territories (and beyond) of

their former cultural realm. Thus one may characterise the earliest

figural arts of western Tibet as derivatives of the great centuries-old

Kashmirian tradition, which remained the basic aesthetic convention in

the whole western Himalayas until the 13th century.114 The art of

Kashmir was basically not a foreign style in the West of “Greater Tibet”

but can be seen from an overall view as part of a cultural and artistic en-

tity in space and time.

Nepalese art and artists in early central Tibet are well documented since

the 7th and 8th century (Lhasa Jokhang, Samye, etc.). I am, however, re-

114 See for the whole problem of Kashmir and western Tibetan statuary M.Henss, Bud-

dhist Metal Images of Western Tibet, ca.1000-1500 A.D.: Historical Evidence, Stylistic

Consideration and Modern Myths. The Tibet Journal, vol.XXVII, no.3/4, 2002,

p.23-82.

97

luctant to see as Amy Heller does similar influences at this period in

eastern Tibet. The figural style of the Denma Drag rock carvings (dated

816) is in my understanding clearly related to contemporary “Tibeto-

Central Asian” images in the Buddhist grottoes along the Silk Road in

the northern Chinese-Tibetan borderlands such as Dunhuang (Cave 14)

or Yulin. Refering to the Nepal-Tibet connection Heller (p.87) claims

that gilt copper images of the western Nepalese Khasa-Malla kingdom

would have been sent to Drigung monastery and to the Lhasa Jokhang

during the later 13th and in the 14th century. Although this cannot be

ruled out, it does not, however, make much sense for three reasons.

Firstly, the text “source” quoted by Heller (Blue Annals, p.580, 583f.,

607) mentions only some “golden roofs of caityas” apparently donated

by the king of Ya tshe and simply “numerous offerings”, but no images.

Secondly, the period concerned would be considerably earlier than those

Nepalese statues, which in style and quality may represent a 14th cen-

tury “Khasa Malla” artistic profile, attractive for “export” to Tibet. And

finally there were many more and much better 13th and 14th century

metal images to be given to Tibet, which were either produced in the

Kathmandu Valley and sent to Tibetan commissioners or manufactured

by Newari artists in Tibet for Tibetan patrons.

When ancient texts like the dBa’ bzed chronicle describe the art and ar-

chitecture of Samye monastery (late 8th century) as made in the Indian,

Chinese, and Tibetan style, “Indian” refers in fact to Nepal in its analo-

gous interpretation of Indian Pala art, “Chinese” to the northern Silk

Road regions, while “Tibetan” seems to stand more for an ideal con-

struct than for an art historical reality.

Amy Heller possibly overestimates Atisha’s role for the transfer of In-

dian and Nepalese art to western Tibet, which are at those times on

their “natural” northbound ways much more influential in southern and

central Tibet. She refers to the great Newari specialities such as the

elaborate gilt-copper repoussé prabhâmaïçndalas, the throneback of an

image, which at the early phyi dar period foundations like Shalu, Yemar

98

or Kyangbu were combined with Central Asian elements to a rather

eclectic and syncretistic stylistic profile.

To illustrate the Kashmiri and Nepalese connection of Tibetan art

Heller includes an exceptional smaller version in silver and gilt brass

with copper inlays of the famous “Three Silver Brothers” (dngul sku

mched gsum, catalogue ill.p.87), a monumental group of the three bo-

dhisattvas Avalokiteshvara (center), Manjushri, and Vajrapani at Kho-

jarnath monastery close to the border of western Nepal, which she had

published previously and convincingly attributed on historical and stylis-

tic grounds to the local Purang or Guge milieu of the early 13th cen-

tury.115 This hitherto unknown masterpiece combines in a unique way –

and confirmed by the ancient texts - the late art of Kashmir (figural

style; compare the wall-paintings in the Sumtseg temple at Alchi) with

contemporary Nepalese traditions (throne and torana), two “foreign”

styles – as seen from a central Tibetan perspective – which were at that

time in the Guge-Purang and Nepal borderlands not foreign at all.

Considering the Nepalo-Tibetan issue, Amy Heller comes once more to

the much discussed Fourn ie r -Mahâkâ l a of the Musée Guimet (p.86,

ill. on p.102) dated by its inscription to 1292 (or 1293?) (fig. 86). Since

the Tibetan donor A tsar Bag shi had served in ‘Phags pa’s entourage at

115 Bibliographical reference missing in the catalogue: A.Heller, The Three Silver

Brothers. Orientations, April 2003, p.28-34. Heller’s date of “c. 1220”, which one

would rather prefer as “sometime after 1220”, is only based on a legendary tradition as

recorded by R.Vitali (The Kingdoms of Gu-ge Pu-trang. Dharamsala 1996, p.401-403

associated with king gNam mgon lde, who had become ruler of Purang in 1220. Kha

char (Newari: Khojarnath) was not the “capital” of sPu hrangs (which was sTag la

mkhar, nowadays Taklakot or Purang), but the principal sacred site nearby. The sculp-

ture group in the Pritzker collection (Chicago) with an inscription by its donor gNam

mkha’ grags can be regarded as a smaller replica (height: 71,4 cm) of the circa contem-

porary “Three Silver Brothers” at Khojarnath, of which the principal statue, the “Great

Silver Image”, was erected soon after the foundation of this monastery by Rinchen

Zangpo in 996 and since then has been highly revered as one of the Three Jowo (Jo

bo) of Tibet, next to the Jokhang Jowo Shakyamuni in Lhasa and the Kyirong Jowo.

The present three statues at Khojarnath have survived the centuries and the devasta-

tions of the “Cultural Revolution” only in a very fragmentary condition.

99

the Mongol court (but very likely returned to Sakya after the state reli-

gious preceptor’s death in 1280), it was believed by some scholars that

this 47 cm large stone stele might have been manufactured in the impe-

rial ateliers at Dadu (Beijing), which were supervised by the famous

Newari master-artist Anige (A ni ko, 1245-1306). There are, however,

no real arguments in favour of a production in Yuan China. Thus Sakya,

whose many ancient – and preserved! – art treasures are largely un-

known and unresearched until these days, was - in agreement with Amy

Heller - with much probability the place where this Mahâkâla of the

Tent and very likely also comparable miniature stelae (cat.no.64, and

fig. 87) were carved in the second half of the 13th century. This seems to

be supported even by the inscription, as it was already noted by Heather

Stoddard in 1985. While the distinctive Newari style of this statue is also

emphasized by Heller, the association with the “Anige style”116 can be

only understood in the broader sense of the various Nepalo-Tibetan dia-

lects as they exist – next to pure Newari and “Nepalo-Chinese” styles –

in the wall-paintings at Shalu of the late 13th and early 14th century,

which reflect quite vaguely the profile of what could have been the

Anige style at the Mongol Yuan court alike.

How closely Nepalese and Tibetan styles were integrated into each other

is shown in all kind of grades by countless sculptures and paintings in

the 14th century. The luxuriant gilt copper statuary of the former stupa

decorations at Densa Thil (ill. 11 on p.87) represents the Newar-

dominated sculptural style in Tibet between circa 1350 and 1450 in the

116 See M. Henss, Is there any “Anige Style” in Nepalo-Tibetan and Tibeto-Chinese

Metal Sculpture of the Sa skya-Yuan Period? Third International Conference on

Tibetan Archaeology and Art, Beijing 2006, Abstracts, p.77-83, and in: Palace Museum

Journal, no.5, 2007, Beijing, p.51-66 (in Chinese) – I cannot recognize a dragon (Heller)

on the lower part of the stele, however a serpent instead, which may refer to the year

1293. According to H.Stoddard’s translation of the inscription the “statue was com-

pleted well in the year of the male water dragon (1292)”, cf. A Stone Sculpture of

mGur mGon po, Mahâkâla of the Tent, dated 1292. Oriental Art, 1985, no.3,

p.278-282.

100

most extensive way. I cannot see, however, a “Nepalese taste” for a sil-

ver image of a lama (dated 1476, ill.13 on.p.88). And overestimated by

Heller is also the influence of Pala style models for the Tibeto-Chinese

lotus mandalas (no.75), which certainly can be regarded as more creative

compositions than just as a “nearly perfect copy of the (Indian) original”

(Heller, p.88). To characterise these most sophisticated metalworks as

“replicas” (which would be more correct for many Tibeto-Chinese

metal images of the 18th century) can be disproved by a proper com-

parison with the Indian prototypes.

Georg D r e y f u s’ contribution on Drepung (founded in 1416, not

1418) gives an exemplary insight to the history and system of Tibetan

monastic institutions now and then and thus provides valuable back-

ground information for the understanding of the actual origin and func-

tion as well as for the iconological and ritual context of Tibetan art

(p.25-33).

In a similar way helpful for the reading of Buddhist images and symbols

is Uwe B r ä u t i g a m’s introduction into some basic structures of the

rituals in tantric Buddhism, a most essential but rather rarely treated sub-

ject in books on Tibetan art! (p.62-70)

The well organised essay on the mandalas shown in the exhibition by

Christian L u c z i a n i t s allows deep and broad understanding in order

to analyze and visualize a mandala, both for general a n d for more ad-

vanced interest. Much has been written on this principal meditational

image and ritual object and one may argue that when doing a nine page

survey one has only the choice to decide either for a general and eventu-

ally rather “popular” compilation of well-known characteristics and in-

terpretations, or for a specific problem such as an iconographic or art

historical aspect of a so far unresearched individual mandala. Instead the

author succeeded in covering by his condensed overview the full range

of mandala essentials with some new approach and insight: etymology

and definition, composition and geometry, iconography and ritual, form

and function, consecration and textual sources, exemplified by some

101

Highest Yoga Tantras, the mandalas of Vajradhâtu, Cakrasamvara, Va-jrayogini, and Vajrabhairava (p.71-79).117

It is common knowledge that in Tibet the written word of the Buddha is

held in higher esteem than a Buddhist image. Sacred scriptures are today

the most hidden and unexplored treasures in Tibetan monasteries and

archives (see above in this review for catalogue no.26). Conservation

and investigation of manuscripts and printed books may no doubt lead

to further exciting discoveries and will be hopefully among the priorities

of the current and future efforts to preserve and document Tibet’s cul-

tural heritage. Accordingly is the contribution to the history and diffe-

rent categories of Buddhist books and textual traditions in Tibet by

Sonam W a n g d e n , Vice-director of the Tibet-Museum in Lhasa, not

only a must within the context of the exhibition, but also most welcome

to encourage future attention, care, and research in Tibet and abroad

(p.54-61).

In this sense a few additional remarks to Sonam Wangden’s text and il-

lustrations may prove to be helpful. Although my own knowledge in this

field is very limited, I do have some doubts about the early dating of

several reproduced manuscripts such as fig. 2, 5 and 6. The sutra page of

fig. 2 from Tholing monastery can certainly not be dated to the “Yar-

lung period”, however in comparison with similar illuminated manu-

script pages from this area to the 11th or 12th century. To identify a

Prajñâpâramitâ text page in dBu med characters as the personal hand-

writing of King Trisong Detsen (r.755-797) recalls some other very cou-

rageously dated scriptures in the Lhasa museum.118 Another important

117 Though being of minor importance within this context Luczianits’ (too) early dating

of the mandala wall-painting at Nako monastery in Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh, India

(essay, fig.4), to the “early 12th century” would not correspond in my opinion to the

Western Tibetan painting styles and to the chronology of the mandalas at Phiyang

(Gu ge, ca.1100?) and Alchi (early 13th century).

118 Compare Precious Deposits 2000, op.cit., vol.I, nos.72, 87, 88, 100, 103. Other

problematic attribution to the sPu rgyal dynasty period as mentioned by Sonam Wang-

den would comprise a text collection on the Potala Palace written by Santaraksita and

some Kanjur and Tanjur texts written in gold script on indigo-blue paper.

102

treasure in the Tibet Museum attributed to the “Yarlung period”, a

Sanskrit text collection written in Æâradâ script on birch-bark (shing stag

pa’i shun pags) and bound as a Western style book (15,6x15,3cm; ill.5

on p.59), was identified only recently by the Japanese scholar Kazuhiro

Kawasaki as having been copied in Kashmir during the reign of King

Anantadeva (r.1028-1063) and dated according to the colophon to 1059.

Its 27 tantric Buddhist texts are dedicated to rituals and commentaries,

especially of the Jñânapâda school, one of the two major traditions for

the interpretation of the Guhyasamâja tantra (fig. 88).119

Another Tibetan expert from Lhasa, Mr. P a p h e n of the Potala ad-

ministration, was invited to present his experience and ideas – so to

speak on his own behalf – about the Potala Palace. It is very much ap-

preciated that local scholars contribute to such a high-ranking exhibition

abroad, even when their opinions do not always correspond to other re-

search in the field. Paphen’s claim that King Songtsen Gampo had built

on top of the dMar po ri a monumental royal palace (sKu mkhar pho

brang) with “thousand rooms and three enclosure walls” takes up a well-

known and longstanding legendary tradition, which has become “his-

tory” and thus was accepted as fact even in scholarly publications.120 Al-

119 Kazuhiro Kawasaki, On a Birch-bark Sanskrit Manuscript Preserved in the Tibet

Museum. Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies, vol.52, no.2, 2004, p.903-905. I

thank Dr. Helmut Eimer for having made this publication available. Another very simi-

lar Sanskrit manuscript written on individual birch-bark pages of the “Indo-Tibetan”

palm-leaf type found at Tholing monastery in Western Tibet confirms for sheer his-

torical reasons an 11th century date of the Sanskrit book in Lhasa. – A brief comment

to note 7 on p.586: the monastery “Drongkhar Chöde” on p.57 of Sonam Wangden’s

text is not identical with “Gongkar Chöde” (near Lhasa airport), but located in Lho-

drag, northwest of Tsona (Tsome).

120 See for example Mi nyag Chos kyi rGyal mtshan: Srong btsan sgam po’i dus kyi pho

brang po ta la’i bzo dbyibs dang chags tshul skor rob tsam dpyad pa (A Fundamental

Research on the Potala Palace’s structure during the period of King Songtsen Gampo).

Paper presented at the Seventh IATS Seminar, Bloomington/USA 1998 (unpublished).

This author’s arguments are based on the bKa’ chems ka khol ma, the famous gter ma

text attributed to King Songtsen Gampo and which he regards as authentic. Chos kyi

rGyal mtshan follows largely the hypothesis of the early building history of the Potala

Palace raised in the course of the extensive restorations in 1989-1994 and published in:

103

though new claims were made in the years following the comprehensive

building renovation of 1989-1994, theories of several extensive tower

constructions on the dMar po ri hill during the early sPu rgyal period

must remain speculative and without definitive archaeological evidence.

And even if it cannot be completely ruled out that some minor fortified

building structures (rtse mkhar) did exist on the summit of the Red Hill

next to an early image shrine for the Arya Avalokiteshvara in the 7th

and 8th century, the hypothesis of a major “Proto-Potala Palace” must

be regarded as a myth. This includes also some recently discovered wall-

paintings in the well-known Meditation Cave of the Religious King

(Chos rgyal sGru phug), for which a “seventh century” date was already

forwarded by the restoration team in the 1990s despite their much later

style.121 Like the famous royal statues in the same sanctuary these mu-

rals, now again completely covered by later furnishings, were executed

in a slightly archaistic style when this chapel was reconstructed as an ar-

tificial cave of Avalokiteshvara’s sacred abode on Mount Potalaka in

1645.

To write about “Tibetans on the Silk Route” from a Central Asian per-

spective is apparently more difficult than from a Lhasa eye-view and ex-

perience. And this first of all for pure reasons of chronology and cul-

tural transfer as seen – or unseen – in the contribution by Mar i anne

Ya ld iz , former director of the Museum of Indian Art in Berlin and a

wellknown specialist on Silk Road art (p.48-53). With the above title as

Xizang Budala Gong (The Potala Palace of Tibet). Ed.: Potala Restoration Office. 2

vols. Beijing 1996. For a critical discussion of the early history and architecture of the

Potala Palace see M.Henss, The Cultural Monuments of Tibet, vol.I, chapter 5.1, forth-

coming. – Several (17th century?) cavity-substructures, between one and five metres in

width and up to 14 metres deep, were discovered at the Potala in the late 1990s and re-

garded by Paphen as belonging to the Songtsen Gampo period (p.38).

121 See Xizang Budala Gong 1996, op.cit.,p.47, plate 253. For the problem of the ear-

liest building structures and image cycles on the Potala, especially for the Chos rgyal

sGrub phug chapel, see also Henss (King Srong btsan sGam po) 2004, op.cit.,

p.145-149.

104

guideline one would have expected a survey on the Tibetan influences in

the Buddhist centers from Khotan to Karakhoto from the 8th to the

14th century, and prefered a more systematic overview of the cross-

cultural connections between Tibet and these international trade and

pilgrimage routes. Why not “Tibet and Central Asia” and presenting a

greater variety of the artistic interrelations in the sense of “from Tibet to

Dunhuang and back”?

Several details of the catalogue text should be reconsidered. By inclu-

ding Kashmir into the “Greater Silk Road” areas the author claims that

a “greater number of sculptures were made in Kashmir for Tibetan

monasteries”, a statement, for which no evidence at all exists in view of

central Tibet and, with a few exceptions, also for most of western Tibet.

While early Kashmir style images like no.13 may have been brought by

the Tibetans during their military missions to the far West back to the

Central Regions as tribute or booty (at a time when major monasteries

had not yet been established), statues of later periods were usually pro-

duced by Kashmir artists or in Western Tibet under the guidance of

their new patrons and sponsors.

Instead of presenting specific sites and works of art in order to illustrate

the various contacts between the Tibetans and the Silk Road, Yaldiz

considers an earlier speculative hypothesis (by Kira Samosyuk) of Ti-

betan artists working in the Turfan area and beyond during the 11th and

12th century by comparing some painted haloes of a “radiating” design

at Shalu monastery (14th century) with the 500 years earlier Bezeklik

murals, but finally has to accept that it is the other way round. Influ-

ences from Central Asia can be recognized, for example, in early Ti-

betan metalware or in Tibetan temples such as the Jokhang, and Keru

Lhakhang, or at Yemar and Drathang. These cultural relics alone or the

excavations at Dulan in Northern Tibet (see Amy Heller’s essay, p.80ff.)

as well as the Tibetan style murals at Dunhuang or the Tibetan silk ban-

ners from the same place – the only traces of Tibetan art besides the

later painting tradition in the Tangut Xi Xia Kingdom – would provide

some concrete material to document and illustrate a chapter on “Tibet

105

and the Silk Road”. The central image of the Buddha at Keru Lhakhang

(not “Kwachu” as misunderstood already by Roberto Vitali; p.51) can

hardly be characterized as “Khotanese” since the present statue dates,

unlike the 8th century bodhisattva statues in the same shrine, only to the

15th century. The five illustrations, well-known from many Silk Road

publications, do not refer to any specific “Tibetan connection” in Cen-

tral Asia or Central Asian traces in Tibet.

Heather S t o d d a r d gives in her essay on “The Artists and their

Patrons in Tibet” (p.96-104) much insight into a rather rarely treated

subject, presented here within a broad range of Tibetan cultural history

from the 7th to the 19th century. Donating and commissioning, produ-

cing and consecrating, worshipping and restoring Buddhist temples and

images raises various questions of Tibet’s “social history of art and reli-

gion”. Which has been the role of the donors and patrons, of lamas and

laymen, of the artists and their sponsors, of the monasteries and of the

sangha? And how can their interactions be described? What are the mo-

tivations to have a statue made or a shrine built? It is the wish to accu-

mulate religious merit and good karma, to insure a positive rebirth, to

overcome physical and mental obstacles, to gain health and prosperity,

to avoid negative thinking, to honour a lama or a distinctive person, or –

under specific historical circumstances – to sanctify a wordly sovereign

as a divine ruler and sacred king?

All these personal, socio-religious, ritual, economical, and political as-

pects are literally the vast background of Tibetan-Buddhist art and in-

clude probably more than in any other religious culture a considerable

potential of psychotherapeutic functions and effects. Tibetan texts may

offer a great deal of source material in this field, to which more proper

attention should be given. Heather Stoddard quotes one of them in

some details about donations and offerings, rituals, and restorations re-

corded by the Nyingma yogin Shabkar Tsogdrug Rangdröl (Zhabs dkar

Tshogs drug Rang grol, 1781-1851) at Ding ri rdzong in southern Tibet.

For many other monuments and cultural relics these interactions and in-

terrelations between donor and artist, believer and benefactor, or priest

106

and patron (mchod yon) are still unknown. And even the scholarly au-

thor surprisingly takes legend for history when it comes to the palladium

of Tibet, the Jo bo Shakyamuni in the Lhasa Jo khang: “in fact an image,

which came by sea from India [to China] and was brought as part of

Wencheng’s dowry” (p.99). And reading this stimulating contribution

one may suggest some further studies in Tibetan texts on “the artist and

his theological adviser in iconography and ritual”.

There are basically similar motives for donating a Buddhist image and

for making “Pilgrimages in Tibet”, a subject discussed by Toni Huber,

Professor for Tibetan studies at Humboldt University, Berlin (p.41-47):

to achieve religious merit by visiting holy places and sacred spaces such

as mountains and hermitages of gods and saints, participating in reli-

gious ceremonies, worshipping a specific image of mythical or historical

importance, or meeting an enlightened master (or his mortal remains

and ritual objects) to get his blessings. Thus the pilgrim experiences by

this popular practice, as Toni Huber says, the divine presence and vital

energy of the sacred site or holy person, chinlab (byin rlabs), which

transforms body and mind. Tibetans would use two principal terms for

doing pilgrimage, whose practical and linguistic forms are based on In-

dian traditions: nekhor (gnas ‘khor, Sanskr. pradakíiôa), “to circumam-

bulate [around a sacred place or image]”, and nejal (gnas mjal, Sanskr.

dâræana), “to meet” (encounter or see) the sacred.

My own contribution “Iconometry in Tibetan Buddhist Art” (p.105-

113) is supposed to give an introduction to some basic theoretical con-

cepts and practical techniques of Tibetan art by describing and interpre-

ting the metaphysical and aesthetic guidelines of the art “how to make

an image of the Buddha”. Iconometry (chag tshad) can be regarded as

the central grammar of Tibetan art in order to establish the perfect form

as a standard for the perfectness of mind and for the representation of

the perfect Buddha nature. Respecting measures and proportions as the

“Characteristic Features of an Image”, Pratimâmaôa laksaôanâma, the title of an early iconometric Indian text, is to generate visual dharma.

107

Only then can the sacred painting or statue be ritually alive and effec-

tive.

Other Indian sources are the famous Citralakíaôa, also a non-Buddhist

“Treatise of the Characteristics and Origins of the Figural Arts”, and

two Buddhist texts such as the Daæatâla nyagrodha parimaôçala

buddhapratimâ lakíaôa nâma and the Sambuddha bhâíita pratimâ lak-

íaôa vivaraôa nâma, which had been already part of the early Sanskrit Mahâyâna tantras before they were translated into Tibetan (the only ver-

sions to exist) during the 12th and 13th century.

What do we know about the translator of the Tibetan text? In his exten-

sive commentary to the Chinese edition of the “Buddhist Canon of

Iconometry” (Zhaoxiang liangdu jing, 1742), as the Tibetan translation

of the short Pratimâ lakíaôa iconometric sutra was called in a “simpli-

fied” version of the Tanjur, the eminent Mongolian scholar and transla-

tor Gömpojab (mGon po skyabs, Chin. Gongbu chabu, ca. 1669-1750)

mentions that the original Tibetan text was compiled from the Sanskrit

“by the monk of the Western Paradise, Dharmadara, and by Dragpa

Gyaltsen (Grags pa rGyal mtshan) from Yarlung, and translated in

Gungthang township”.122 How can these two translators from the

Sanskrit into Tibetan be identified?

While the Indian master Dharmadara is otherwise only known by a

translated treatise on physiognomy in the Tanjur, the Tibetan Dragpa

Gyaltsen may by associated with three different persons of this name,

who were active around 1200, 1300, and 1400 respectively: either with

the famous Sakya hierarch rJe btsun Grags pa rGyal mtshan (1147-1216,

see no.9 of the catalogue) or with Yar klungs lo tsa ba Grags pa rGyal

mtshan of the late 13th to the first half of the 14th century as mentioned

in George N.Roerich’s English edition of the Deb ther sngon po (Blue

Annals, p.281), or with the Bodongpa abbot Grags pa rGyal mtshan

122 Gömpojab: Zaoxiang liangdu jing. The Buddhist Canon of Iconometry. With Sup-

plement. A Tibetan-Chinese Translation from about 1742 by mGon po skyabs. Trans-

lated and annotated from this Chinese translation into modern English by Cai Jingfeng.

Introduction and editing assistance by Michael Henss, Ulm 2000, p.13ff., 84.

108

(1352-1405). While the former was suggested without relevant textual

sources (Amy Heller, personal communication), there are literary refe-

rences to identify the second or the third person with the translator of

the Tibetan Buddhist Canon.

Though having given priority in my essay to Bodong Dragpa Gyaltsen, I

may have to reconsider my earlier suggestion that our translator is the

Yar klungs lo tsa ba of the Blue Annals and thus was active at around

1300 or during the first half of the 14th century123. This would be all the

more supported by some other iconometric texts such as the Pratimâ

maôa lakíaôa and the Sambuddha bhâsita pratimâ lakíaôa vivaraôa

nâma, which were translated by the same Dragpa Gyaltsen and Dhar-madara and recorded in Butön’s (Bu ston, 1290-1364) Tanjur catalogue.

Bu tön’s own treatise on the proportions and construction of the

Enlightenment Stupa, Byang chub chen po’i mchod rten gyi tshad

bzhugs so (Coll. Works, vol. Pha, 14, Delhi 1969, p.554-558), which had

been translated into Chinese during his lifetime, was studied only re-

cently by Shen Weirong. Another iconometric manual composed by

Butön, which was of great influence a hundred years later on the emi-

nent painter Menla Döndrub (sMan bla don grub), is only recorded in

the autobiography of the 18th century scholar-artist Tsültrim Rinchen

(Tshul khrims Rin chen, 1697-1774) from eastern Tibet, but has not yet

been identified so far.124

Further iconometric texts are known for example by the Eighth and

Tenth Karmapa (1507-1554, 1604-1674), Pema Karpo (Padma dKar po,

1526-1592), and by the Fifth Dalai Lama (1617-1682), which are, how-

123 See n.67, and in the book under review, p.106 and n.16 on p.589. For this identity

of the “second” Grags pa rGyal mtshan see also P.Sorensen, 2007, op.cit., vol.II,

appendix I, n.11.

124 See Shen Weirong: Studies on the Yuan translation of Bu ston’s Proportional Man-

ual of the Enlightenment Stupa, in: Studies in Sino-Tibetan Buddhist Art. Proceedings

of the Second International Conference onTibetan Archaeology and Art, Beijing, Sep-

tember 3-6, 2004, Beijing 2006, p.77-108 (Chinese text with Bu ston’s text in roma-

nized transliteration); Jackson 1996, p.76 and n.167.

109

ever, more written in the style of theoretical treatises on symbolic nu-

merology – based on Indian sources and on the Tantras – than as prac-

tical manuals for the artist. A detailed discourse on the proportions in

painting and sculpture, the Cha tshad kyi bris dpe dpyod ldan yid gos,

was edited by Regent Sangye Gyatso (Sang rgyas rGya mtsho, 1653-

1705) when at the time in 1687/1688, this erudite author had completed

the Vaidurya g.Ya’sel, a commentary on the traditional sciences as they

are described in his “White Lapislazuli” (Vaidurya dkar po, 1685).

This so far largely unknown iconometrical handbook mentioned in the

sDe srid’s biography of the Sixth Dalai Lama is now preserved in the

Archives of the TAR in Lhasa. It has been studied in full detail by Chris-

toph C ü p p e r s , who presented his research recently at the Eleventh

IATS Seminar 2006 and at the Third International Conference on Ti-

betan Archaeology and Art in Beijing in October 2006.125 According to

the painter Lha sa dGe bsnyen, one of the artists to execute the murals

in the Potala Red Palace during the following years, it had become diffi-

cult to consult the old iconometric manuals, whose proportional dra-

wings were often incorrect or not complete, and therefore he proposed

to produce a new handbook with the correct measurements.

This dPyod ldan yid gsos (short title), which was based on the icono-

metric concepts established by the famous sMan bla Don grub (Yid

bzhin gyi nor bu) and by nGa la gzigs (his treatise on stupas mChod rten

gyi thig rtsa), consists of 137 square-sized pages of polished canvas

sheets (ca. 40x40 cm, ca. 82x42 cm when unfolded). For the illustrations

– probably the earliest iconometric drawings to exist – Sangye Gyatso

employed the three master-artists Nor bu rGya mtsho from Lho brag,

‘Jam dbyangs dbang po from Gyantse, and Sangs rgyas Chos grags from

Ngam ring. In his study, which will be published as a facsimile edition

125 C. Cüppers: sDe srid Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho’s Vaidurya g.ya’ sel and the icono-

metrical handbook “cha tshad kyi bris dpe dpyod ldan yid gsos”. For a more detailed

English abstract of this paper see: Sino-Tibetan Buddhist Art Studies. Third Interna-

tional Conference onTibetan Archaeology and Art, Beijing 2006, Abstracts, p.19-23.

110

book with an English and Chinese introduction (and hopefully a Ti-

betan as well!), Cüppers gives an annotated survey on the section on

language and on the proportions of different scripts in the Vaidurya

g.Ya’ sel (chapter 202).

Coming back to Gömpojab’s Chinese translation of the Iconometric

Canon and its extensive commentary, this influential text and especially

the illustrations must have been composed in close cooperation with the

Second lCang skya Hu thug tu Rol pa’i rDo rje (1717-1786), who made

a “very detailed revision and proofreading” as stated in his interesting

preface.126

It seems that this foremost Buddhist tutor and chief art consultant of

the Chinese emperor was also the mastermind behind the iconometric

drawings in Gömpojab’s Buddhist Canon, which, at least in the case of

some of them, can be traced back to the 756 blockprinted illustrations in

the Mongol Kangxi-Kanjur from 1718/1720.127

A rare iconometric thangka of the thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara in

the Tibet Museum, Lhasa, discussed in my text (fig. 89; see exhibition

catalogue p.110, reproduced on p.91) but not shown in the exhibition,

was no doubt painted as an instructional guideline for the artists.Little is

known in Tibetan art history about the actual technical procedures from

the iconometric drawing until the completion of a painted and – even

less – of a three-dimensional image. An original and so to say “histori-

cal” iconometric grid (thig khang) of a Buddha head has been preserved

126 See Gömpojab 2000, op.cit., p.35f. For another English translation compare

P.Berger, Empire of Emptiness. Buddhist Art and Political Authority in Qing China.

Honolulu 2003, p.84ff.

127 Compare Gömpojab 2000, op.cit., ill.p.61, and L.Chandra, Buddhist Iconography of

Tibet, Kyoto 1986, vol.I, fig.90, p.20ff. See also Berger 2003, op.cit., p.87-89, claiming

that according to the original 18th century text edition the illustrations of the Zaoxiang

liangdu jing were “provided as patterns by Rolpay Dorje” (although this reference re-

mains a bit unclear). – On Rolpai Dorje’s role in Buddhist art at the Qing court see

M.Henss, Rölpai Dorje – teacher of the Empire. A Profile of the Life and Works of

the Second Changkya Huthugtu, 1717-1786, in: Chinese Imperial Patronage. Treasures

from Temples and Palaces, vol.II, Asian Art Gallery, London 2005, p.97-109.

111

with a giant silk brocade gos sku thangka at Gyantse monastery dating

to 1436-1438 (fig.8 on p.113).128

The Lhasa thangka, which is inscribed as “a model for the [lines of]

proportions of a Sambhogakâya Buddha” (Sangs rgyas dang longs sku’i

cha tshad kyi thig ris) illustrates precisely – though deviating in the

measurements – a text on the representation of a bodhisattva added by

Gömpojab to his Buddhist Canon Zaoxiang liangdu jing.129

The red iconometric grid divides the bodhisattva vertically into 178

Small Units or sor (also sor mo, Sankrit ângula or finger width, of which

112 refer to the proper figure from the top of the principal head (12

units, zhal tshad) to the feet, while 48 Small Units correspond to the

successive heads, decreasing from ten to eight, six, and four sor, and in-

cluding – rather unusual from a “Western” perspective – the diadem

and uppermost section of the central face. The other 18 Small Units

(6 plus 12) are the measurements for the plinth and lotus throne. Seen in

the horizontal dimension the radiant one-thousand-armed Avalo-

kiteshvara comprises a hundred Small Units, fifty on each side of the

central axis, all divided in Gömpojab’s Canon into an inner circle of

dharmakâya consisting of the eight main arms, an intermediate circle of

sambhogakâya comprising 40 arms, and into an outer section of the

second to sixth circles corresponding to nirmaôakâya with totally 952

arms.

The last section of my text on comparative iconometry in Chinese,

Japanese, ancient Egyptian, Byzantine, and European Renaissance art

has been omitted because of “general space problems”. A serious issue

indeed for a 662 pages exhibition catalogue with many lengthy mono-

graphic studies on the exhibited objects, in which two or three addi-

128 See M.Henss, Liberation from the Pain of Evil Destinies. The Silken Images (gos

sku) of Gyantse Monastery. Proceedings of the Tenth IATS Seminar, Oxford 2003,

edited by E.Lo Bue, Leiden 2008, and for the methods and techniques of Tibetan

painting in general D.P. and J.A.Jackson, Tibetan Thangka Painting. Methods and

Materials. London 1984.

129 Cf. Gömpojab 2000, p.87f., and Pott 1963, p.199-202.

112

tional pages on other Eastern and on different Western iconometric

concepts – and thus coming back to our own roots and notions – may

have served better to the understanding – primarily for the great majo-

rity of the Western readers – of these rather complex and complicated

artistic theories and practices.

From cult object to art, from temple to museum. This is the usual way

of a religious image or artefact now ”exhibited” for secular interest and

separated from its former ritual environment. The museum cannot be a

copy of an authentic sacred space and context; instead it reflects our

own contemporary aesthetic and intellectual perceptions of a foreign

culture. It may well create to a certain degree a monastic ambience and

atmosphere, however it won’t reproduce “Tibet live” as expected and

suggested by some visitors.

Thus any critique with regard to the life-size Lamdre lineage statues as

being “deprived of their ritual essence and degraded to mere art objects”

(as if there would have been much spiritual power and ritual function

left of these Sakya masters after the “Cultural Revolution” and since

having been shifted to a Nyingmapa monastery!) must go into an odd

direction. This does not necessarily mean that an exhibition of religious

art should “reduce” the sacred image to an artistic masterpiece, even

when it is no more in ritual use. Flowers, candles, and other signs and

symbols of devotion may well contribute to provide and to revive its

spiritual presence such as when we can look at Buddhist statues in Japa-

nese museums. Even in non-Buddhist Germany one would prefer to

have the Seven Offering Bowls (ting phor or chu gtor) in front of the

silken Cakrasamvara image filled with holy water, which, thus I have

heard, was avoided for security reasons.

Official German statements credit the Tibetan monasteries with having

actively shown courtesy and cooperation when lending their treasures

for this exhibition. These encouraging background details are possibly

associated with rhetoric and goodwill interpretations on the long way

from Lhasa to Essen and Berlin. There was no doubt great courtesy and

cooperation with the TAR Administrative Bureau of Cultural Relics and

113

their experts in Lhasa and beyond. Some monks of these monasteries

are reported to have considered giving their treasures abroad so that the

Dalai Lama would be able to see them in the exhibition.

Several esteemed Tibetan scholars now living in Germany were directly

involved in this exhibition like Loden Sherab Dagyab Rinpoche and Ge-

she Pema Tsering (both from Bonn University) or provided valuable

advice and assistance in loco or at home like Namgyal Gönpo Ronge

(Königswinter/Bonn). H.H. Sakya Trizin, throneholder of the Sakya

lineage, and his entourage visited the exhibition during their dharma

tour in Europe. And as Professor Paul Vogt, director of the Villa Hügel

Museum, said in an official statement: “We have been successful to

open some doors, which were closed before this exhibition, and we do

hope to have paved the way for future cultural encounters in this sense

as they are planned in the USA, Japan and Korea. I believe in the possi-

bilities and in the effect of such an active approach and engagement.”

114

“Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet” by Ulrich von Schroeder 130

A revised review with new Addendum

Twenty years after lndo-Tibetan Bronzes (Hongkong 1981), a standard

work on Indian, Nepalese, Tibetan and Tibeto-Chinese metal images

mostly in Western public and private collections, Ulrich von Schroeder

has published a two-volume reference book of 1344 pages, with 1753 il-

lustrations (1698 in colour) of over 1100 Buddhist statues and related

imagery preserved in the Potala Palace and 26 monasteries of the Cen-

tral Regions of Tibet (dbUs and gTsang provinces) and at a few sites in

the far West (Nga'ri province), presently within theTibetan Autonomous

Region (TAR), China.

This comprehensive documentation presents a selection of mainly ca.

8th through 15th century statues of approximately 10.000 extant images

that survived the Cultural Revolution of 1966/67 and the years there

after. Besides over 600 mostly Tibetan metal, clay and wooden images

described and illustrated there are 101 sculptures produced by Nepalese

artists (including those manufactured by Newaris in Tibet), 75 sculptures

from northwestern India such as of the post-Gandharan style, from the

Swat, Kashmir and Gilgit areas; 66 statues attributed to the Kashmir

schools in the western Tibetan and Himalayan regions, 139 sculptures

from northeastern India (in Pala and related styles); 67 Tibeto-Chinese

gilt metal images of the early Ming dynasty and 13 early Chinese bronzes

from the Northern Wei to the Tang period.

The first volume of Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet (abbreviated here as

BST) is dedicated to statues from India and Nepal. Chapter I and II re-

fer to those from the northwest region of the Indian subcontinent:

130 Review article: “Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet” by Ulrich von Schroeder. 2 volumes,

Visual Dharma Publications, Hongkong 2001. In : Oriental Art (Singapore), vol. XLIX,

no.2 (2003), pp. 49-60.

115

images from the 6th to 11th centuries from Swat, Hindukush, and Kash-

mir, including its northern borderlands around Gilgit, and its various

schools in western Tibet and the western Himalayas (Himachal

Pradesh). Chapters III to V document metal sculptures, models of the

Mahâbodhi temple at Bodhgaya, a few stupas, and miniature stone-

carvings of Pala and related styles from northeastern India, ca. 750-1200

AD.

Chapter VII to VIII present Nepalese works from the later Licchavi to

the early Malla period of ca. 7th to 14th century, with a main focus on ca.

10th to12th century metal images, including the early woodcarvings in the

Lhasa Jokhang.

The second volume comprises statues made in Tibet and China. Chap-

ter XII, the Tibetan Imperial Period, documents an especially pioneering

research on hitherto unseen 7th-9th century metal images of the Yarlung

(sPu rgyal) dynasty, including some images attributed to the Zhang

Zhung Kingdom of Western Tibet, and a group of figures designed and

cast by the Tenth Karmapa Choying Dorje (Chos dbyings rdo rje, 1604-

74) in the style of the early dynastic period. The major part of the

second volume, chapter XIII to XVIII, very generally labelled as "Ti-

betan Monastic Period", covers statuary made inTibet from the 11th -

15th centuries, with only a few additions up to the 16th and 17th century.

Chapter XIII entirely refers to clay sculptures, either still in situ such as

at Yemar, Nyethang, Gyantse and in the Potala's Dharma King Medita-

tion Cave, or in damaged or destroyed monasteries like Shalu, Nesar,

Kyangbu and others.

A selection of ca. 12th-14th century miniature stone-carvings mostly ma-

nufactured by Nepalese artists in Tibet is shown in chapter XIV. Chap-

ter XV comprises gilt copper and a set of sandalwood sculptures of the

"Nepalese Schools in Tibet" of the 11th -17th centuries, with the partially

questionable claim that all described images were produced by Newari

artists in Tibet (and not in Nepal; see for example plates 216A, 217-221,

etc.) or by Newaris at all (like 215A-D, 233D, 234C, 236A-241F).

116

Gilt copper statues of the "Tibetan Schools" in chapter XVI include a

wide range from almost pure Newari style (!) images of the 11th century

(248D) to monk portraits of the 18th century. In comparison with the

"pure" Indian Pala works brought to Tibet (Vol.1, chapter III-V), chap-

ter XVIII presents the brass sculptures of the "North-Eastern Indian

styles in Tibet": images in the "Tibetan Pala style" (or "Pala Schools in

Tibet"), produced in Tibet, either by Tibetan artists in a more or less

characteristic Indian Pala style, or as suggested at least in sorne cases, by

Indian craftsmen (284D, 286D, which both however appear to be

doubtful, or 288A and C, 293A). Non-gilt brass sculptures of the "Ti-

betan Schools" from the 11th-17th centuries (primarily 12th through 14th

century) make up the substantial part of chapter XVIII. Chapter XIX

includes 13 Chinese gilt bronze images of the Northern Wei and Tang

dynasties, among them three datet works of 462, 463, 473 and 484, all

preserved except for one in the Potala Palace.

Chapter XX, the last chapter, documents 61 gilt Tibeto-Chinese gilt

brass statues and three lotus mandalas of the early Ming period, of

which 54 are inscribed with the six-character Yongle reign mark and two

with the six-character Xuande signature, mostly kept in the Potala

Palace (41 statues, of a total of circa 70 images!) and in the Lhasa Jok-

hang (15 statues).

Each chapter is introduced by an essay to the historical and cultural

background with a discussion of specific art historical guidelines in rela-

tion to the documented images. Other chapters are dedicated to the

"Stylistic Sources of Tibetan Art and Formation of Styles” to the "Ti-

betan Classifications of Metal Sculptures According to Styles”, based on

Tibetan texts (chapter IX); to the "Technical and Ritual Aspects of

Metal Sculptures" including information and data on Tibetan casting

centres and famous Tibetan sculptors (chapter X); and to "Selected Ti-

betan Literary References to Buddhist Sculptures" (chapter XI).

Of great scholarly value are the 125 pages of appendices: a glossary of

mostly Sanskrit terms with their Tibetan equivalents and phonetic spel-

lings, a general index and seven bibliographies of Sanskrit texts, histori-

117

cal and modern Tibetan publications of secondary literature in Western

and in Chinese languages, Tibetan art exhibition catalogues, chronologi-

cal lists to the Yarlung dynasty rulers and to the lineage holders of the

principal Tibetan school traditions, of bibliographical references to the

iconography of Buddhist deities, and to the 34 selected Tibetan mona-

steries (from which sculptures are illustrated in the book).

While von Schroeder has concentrated his field research (1991-2000) on

selected sites in the Central Regions of Tibet, a few Kashmit style sta-

tues of the 11th and 12th century in Western Tibet (Tho ling, mKhar rtse,

Phyi dbang) have been included with the help of Thomas J. Pritzker.

Excluded is the whole area of eastern Tibet (Kham, Amdo). Regrettably

the extensive collections of metal images at Sakya and Tashi Lhünpo

monasteries, next to the Potala Palace and the Lhasa Jokhang the most

important repositories of Buddhist sculptures in present-day Tibet, are

not documented due to problems of access (which however would not

explain the totally missing large gilt copper images of Sakya in the

book!). Also not included are the remarkable collections of the new

Tibet Museum in Lhasa, opened in the fall of 1999.131

Like in Indo-Tibetan Bronzes all chapters are arranged in a catalogue-

like system as the most suitable way for a reference book with hundreds

of individual works of art. Each item has detailed text: iconographic

name (in Sanskrit and Tibetan) and description, regional attribution and

dating, present location with inventory number (where available), mate-

rial and measurements, technical data, inscriptions (if any) in the original

text and English translation, present condition, year of photography,

and – one of the many assets of this monumental publication – in many

cases iconographic references to the specific type or to related subjects

of the statue shown in the book. Although by far most of the images in

BST are documented for the first time, the reference-minded author has

131 Except four Yongle reign works formerly in the Norbulingka collection and in the

Potala Palace (350A/B, 353C, 353D, 357A). See for a survey on the Lhasa Museum M.

Henss, "The New Tibet Museum in Lhasa", Orientations, February 2000, p. 62-65.

118

overlooked several entries from earlier publications for reasons best

known to himself.132

Essential scholarly assistance was provided by a number of specialists

such as David Jackson, Cyrus Stearns and Heather Stoddard for Tibetan

inscriptions, Gouriswar Bhattacharya and Oskar von Hinüber for Indian

inscriptions, and Edward O'Neill and Max Deeg for Chinese inscrip-

tions, and by lndologists Claudine Bautze-Picron and Gerd Mevissen for

iconographical and epigraphical consultation.

Almost all photographs – of professional quality and excellent reproduc-

tion – were taken by the author himself on over 14 research trips to Ti-

bet, a great achievement indeed in view of the fact that physical and

administrative access to many of these relics can be very difficult. A

great number of images in situ are often set behind glass or fencing and

usually covered by brocades. Permission for photography and for more

detailed investigations is normally given by the local monastic represen-

tatives while important cultural relics in the Potala Palace and the Jo-

khang temple are accessible by governmental agreement only.

Great attention has been given by von Schroeder to a clearly arranged

layout of texts and illustrations. Plates, descriptions, further references

and annotations to an individual object can be found on the same facing

pages, a rare benefit for the reader of profusely illustrated books. Other

authors may only dream of such favourable conditions in order to avoid

the inconvenience of searching for footnotes at the back of a cumber-

some 5kg volume and to be their own publisher. Visual Dharma Publi- 132 Accidentally (or not) all concerned statues without those references were published

before by the reviewer, such as BST 199A, 199D/E, 200L, 200N, 229A and 230B in:

M. Henss, Tibet. Die Kulturdenkmäler, Zürich, 1981, plates 46, 45, 50, 49, 47, 48; BST

1A/B, 1C-E, 30A-C, 31B/C, 43A/B, 52A-F, 84C, 106B/C, 108B, 109B/C, 139A/ B,

169B/C, 285C/D, 286D-F, fig.XVIII-4, 302A, 309A, 310E in: M. Henss, "Himalayan

Metal Images of Five Centuries: Recent Discoveries in Tibet", Orientations, June 1996,

figs. l0, 4, 3, 11, 9, 6, 7 and 7/a, 20, 19, 13, 14, 15, 22, 21, 23, 18, 5, 16, 17; BST 200E

and 308B in M.Henss, "Early Tibetan Sculpture", in: On the Path to Void. Buddhist

Art of the Tibetan Realm, ed.by P.Pal, Bombay, 1996, plate 9 and 11.

119

cations Ltd, based in Hongkong, published two earlier books by the

author (lndo-Tibetan Bronzes, 1981, and Buddhist Sculptures of Sri

Lanka, 1990) and was in the fortunate position to go beyond the usual

limits for academic books in sheer physical volume of pages and illustra-

tions, in the quality of printing, and last but not least, in regard to the re-

tail price, whose calculation may not have been exclusively based on ac-

tual cost, but also on the purchasing ability of libraries and scholars, art

collectors and dealers, who simply cannot afford not to have this very

book! Thus being in the admirable position of being able to fufill the

multiple roles of a field-researcher and photographer, author and editor,

publisher and distributor, Ulrich von Schroeder has been able to present

a full-range documentation of his intensive studies, without restriction.

The strictly academic transliteration of Tibetan and Sanskrit names and

words (additional Tibetan phonetic spellings are given in the index) is

acceptable and necessary for a book destined to be rarely used by the

general reader, but probably more by connoisseur-collectors and art

dealers than by a majority of Tibetologists.133 All names of deities are

rendered in Sanskrit with their Tibetan equivalents in brackets.

Great attention has been paid to references. To many "catalogue"

entries are added the specific iconographic literature, including publica-

tions to individual subjects, for example, to the crowned and to the

"short-necked" Buddha (p. 50, 110, 144, 246ff., 264, 394ff.) and for

most of the deities documented. There is, however, the burden of nu-

merous repetitions throughout, although of benefit to the reader in

being able to find all information on one and the same page, which usu-

ally would be part of a separate appendix.

133 It is a well-known fact that not all books with a more special subject are produced

for the (very) special reader only. A problematic example is here - with regard to the

transliteration of the Tibetan names and termini technici - Roberto Vitali's Early Tem-

ples of Central Tibet (London, 1990), which was basically not conceived - at least as

seen by the publisher - for a handful of Tibetologists, but has come out arduously

readable for those who are not.

120

One would have appreciated a more condensed and concentrated

handling of bibliographic sources and termini technici being informed

by 29 full-length reference repetitions of the shared biography (p.798-

808) or by some hundred times of the same Sanskrit or Tibetan equiva-

lent for a specific deity or mudra. One would question the use of a bib-

liography when the reader has to go through seven complete references

in a single footnote (n.299). Additional bibliographical references can be

found at the end of the various introductory chapters, for example, for

the Gandharan and Swat Valley metal images, for the Patola-Shahi dy-

nasty of Gilgit, for Himachal Pradesh and Western Tibet (Guge), for

northeastern Indian metal and stone sculptures, miniature stone sculp-

tures, Nepalese sculptures, for Newaris working in Tibet and Nepalese

influences on Tibetan art, for Tibeto-Chinese and Sino-Tibetan art, or

for specific subjects such as metal analysis and casting technique and to

certain individual sites in Tibet with images previously or now in situ.

In quite a few cases these bibliographical surveys should be more spe-

cifically selected to correspond with a given subject, like for example in

the chapter on the Tibeto-Chinese metal sculptures of the early Ming

dynasty (p.1249), where one would expect clearly related titles (which in

this case are not sufficiently listed!) instead of a sampling of Tang to

Qing dynasty publications.

References to secondary and historical literature are overloaded

throughout by giving in each case the full(!) text. Rather confusing is the

practice of referring an individual site in all(!) passages of another publi-

cation wherever it is mentioned, instead of concentrating on the bold-

type printed pages only (for example, Tucci 1973, Chan 1994, Jackson

1996). Space and volume were apparently no problem for BST!

The fact that Buddhist sculptures in Tibet comprise much more than

only "local" Tibetan statuary gave way to a convincing overall classifica-

tion of the material in situ, according to its de facto origin from India,

Nepal, Tibet and China. This basic order produces however a number

of natural, but not always unavoidable consequences. While the author

has usually placed all works made by Newari artists in Tibet into the

121

second volume (under Tibet, p. 911-993), other sculptures made by

Nepalese craftsmen like the woodcarvings in the Lhasa Jokhang must be

sought in the first volume (under Nepal, p. 406-431). Similarly, one

would expect the Potala Arya Avalokiteshvara, doubtlessly a Newar

work, under Nepal in the first volume together with the much later

Nepalese bodhisattvas in the same shrine, however, one finds it only on

p. 820- 823 in the second volume, like other "pure" Nepalese statues as

fig.VII-6 or figs.XV-9 and 10.

Although occasionally the attempt has been made to describe some of

the criteria whenever Newari artists in Tibet may have adopted specific

stylistic or technical features of the Tibetan traditions, the borderline

between a portable work made by a Newari "at home" and brought to

Tibet or produced in Tibet must remain logically open in many cases.

Whereas monumental ca. 12th-14th century images like the magnificent

Eight Bodhisattvas in Sera monastery (225A- 228D) or several statues in

Shalu monastery (229C, 230A, 230B, etc.) were most probably cast by

Newari ateliers in Tibet (whilst Newaris were painting the walls at

Shalu), most of the smaller Nepalese style figures documented in vo-

lume I were certainly brought to Tibet. This pattern however would

oversimplify the reality of the artistic relations between Tibet and Nepal

in those times. Even life-sized gilt-copper images were commissioned

and then transported to Tibet around 1200, according to a Tibetan text

source.134

Von Schroeder's categorising of Nepa le se s ty l e scu lp tures into

"Nepal", will say made in Nepal and brought to Tibet (vol.I), and into

"Nepalese Schools in Tibet", i.e. statues made either by Newaris in Tibet

or by Tibetans after Newar models (vol. II), is certainly a very reaso-

nable way of documenting such essential Nepalese-Tibetan issues in the

art of the 11th through 14th centuries, but naturally runs into problems

and doubtful attributions here and there. Or, what would finally make

the difference between the bodhisattva Maitreya in Shalu (vol.I, fig.VI1- 134 David Jackson, A History of Tibetan Painting, Wien, 1996, p. 95, note 149.

122

4) and the slightly later bodhisattvas at Sera (vol.II, fig.XV-9,10) to

attribute them respectively to "Nepal” or the "Nepalese Schools in

Tibet"? Or, what may justify giving to the lost Maitreya at Narthang

(vol.I, fig.VII-6) a Nepalese origin instead of an attribution to a Nepal-

ese image-maker working in Tibet?135 And what would be the stylistic

criteria to locate the Avalokiteshvara 167C-E or the Manjushri 164D to

Nepal and several images of the same style like 217A-221A and 248D to

the Nepalese Schools in Tibet, for which the author cannot give any dis-

tinctive arguments?

Thus one would expect to find over 60 statues in the Nepalese section

and only those Nepalese style works under "Tibet", which on stylistic

grounds – as far as it can be identified – were either produced by Tibe-

tans in the Nepalese tradition, or by Newaris in Tibet who had adopted

some specific Tibetan conventions on form and technique. This may

also explain why only six or perhaps eight Nepalese statues from the

Kathmandu Valley of the 14th and the 15th century can be found in

BST, while many more of a distinctive Nepalese style or at least of

Nepalese influence are classified as "Tibetan Schools".

A significant artistic complex of a dominating "Nepa lo-Tibe tan"

stylistic profile in late 14th and early 15th century Tibet, like the imagery

and decoration of the large gilt copper stupa reliquiaries at Densa Thil

monastery (completely destroyed in 1966/67) is presented as a small

chapter of its own with the help of old photographs, however, without a

useful continous addition of related "Nepalo-Tibetan" images from the

same period (255-262). The enormous quantity of gilt copper work at

Densathil may well have resulted – and it most probably did – in a 135 No serious evidence exists for an inscribed (?) date of this statue to ''1093" as

claimed in Liu Yisi, Xizang Fojiao Yishu (Buddhist Art of Tibet), Beijing, 1957, p. 8,

plate 65, and overtaken by von Schroeder as "perhaps dated 1093 AD". Being of a

similar style like the 12th century Sera bodhisattvas (fig.XV-9 and 10) this Maitreya

might well have belonged to Narthang's foundation period (1153). It is surprising that

from among hundreds of metal statues documented in BSTonly a single one (!) can be

precisely dated (to 1713; 281A-C and p.1121).

123

significant stylistic quality that will confirm a regional style and technical

convention created predominantly by Newar craftsmen, which accor-

ding to von Schroeder "appears to have been modified according to the

requirements of the Tibetan patrons to such an extent that the statues

can be classified as Tibetan" (p.1010). However the author owes the re-

ferences to the "pure" Kathmandu Valley style equivalents, either on

Nepalese or on Tibetan territory.

With the exception of the Kashmir-dominated art in far away western

Tibet, no specific regional schools seemed to exist in the sculptural tra-

ditions of the Central Regions (dbUs and gTsang provinces), the cultural

heartland of Tibet. More than the specific area in Tibet (in the sense of

the German term Kunstlandschaft) the distinctive "native" art tradition

of a craftsman, his own regional school and atelier style – also when

working outside his artistic "homeland" – determined the aesthetic pro-

file of the 11th century statuary and painting in Shalu, Yemar, Kyangbu,

or Drathang. The stylistic syncretism at these individual sites only illus-

trates the different artistic provenances. This however does not generally

exclude the ability of a Nepalese or Tibetan artist to work in more than

one style, in order to satisfy his customer or to follow certain local re-

quirements and novelties when abroad.136

In the field of metal sculpture the artists and workshops were almost as

mobile as their cast products. Consequently no attempt is being made in

BST to specify certain images as "Central Tibetan" or "Southern

Tibetan", a usually pretentious yet artificial classification, as recently

found in various publications.

Similar problems for the Nepal-Tibet connection exist with regard to

the import and in f luence of Ind ian works of a r t to T ibe t and

on Tibetan sculptures during the 9th-13th centuries. While the bulk of the

mostly smaller Pala-style statuettes were brought by pious pilgrims

and learned masters to the new holy land of the Buddhist faith, artists

136 A fascinating, however difficult and yet unexplored research subject which would

deserve a more systematic investigation!

124

from eastern India found their way to Tibetan temples and palaces as

well. It would be strange in fact to identify numerous Indian statues as

being brought to or made in Tibet - for which BST gives ample evi-

dence - and to rule out the concrete possibility for some surviving

"Tibetan" paintings that might have been produced by Indian artists.

Although we have so far no inscriptional or literary records about stat-

ues in Central Tibet made by Indians from Bengal or Bihar, which are

still preserved, there can be no doubt that there were more than those

which have survived until today.137

137 According to the „Great Biography“ of Atisha, written sometime before 1469, this

father of the Kadampa school, an Indian from Bengal himself, is said to have commis-

sioned paintings in Vikramashila, his home monastery in present-day Bihar, which

„were made by painters in east India and sent to Nyethang where they are now“, cf.

H.Eimer, Rnam that rgyas pas. Materialien zu einer Biographie des Atisha. Wiesbaden

1979, p.280f. - Sum pa khan po (1702-1775) mentions a reliquary stupa for Atisha

manufactured in 1057 by the Indian artist Acarya Manu in Reding (Rwa sgreng)

monastery, G. Tucci, Tibetan Painted Scrolls, Rome, 1949, p.89. Atisha himself had

commissioned paintings in lndia which were brought to Tibet as stated by dPa’ bo

gTsug lag ‘phreng ba (1504- 66) in his Chos 'byung mkhas pa'i dga' ston, ed. by

L.Chandra, Delhi, 1961, p. 314. According to Padma dkar po (1527-92) metal images

were made by Indian artists in Central Tibet in early 9th century (E. Lo Bue, "Statuary

metals in Tibet and the Himalayas: History, tradition and modern use", Bulletin of Ti-

betology, Gangtok, 1991, no.1-3, p.21). And it would be unlikely indeed that hundreds

of lndian metal images were brought to Tibet, but no cloth paintings! See for the most

recent discussion about lndian paintings in Tibet (or not), Dan Martin: "Painters, Pa-

trons and Paintings of Patrons in Early Tibetan Art", in: Embodying Wisdom, ed. by R.

Linrothe and H. Sorensen, Copenhagen, 2002, p. 139-184, which in my view however

(depending on the interpretation of the painting's inscription) cannot rule out the pos-

sibility or likelihood that the Green Tara in the Ford Collection at Baltimore was in-

deed painted by an lndian artist for a Tibetan patron. Dan Martin's very much appreci-

ated advice "that Tibetan art historians might do well to consult more often with their

more literary and historically oriented fellow Tibetologists" seems to have its value vice

versa as well in general and with regard to his own article (comparing the Ford-Tara

with a much[!] later kesi “painting”): visual interpretation versus purely text-minded

analysis? At last: serious art historical investigation – like in BST – should not be con-

fused with just ‘connoisseurship’, which in the best sense cannot be as in many cases an

alternative approach to solid art historical research, but its very essence.

125

Several superb monumental brass statues of 11th or 12th century in Ngor

and Nyethang monasteries (106B-C, 106D, 108B), in the Potala Palace

(107A-B, 107C-D) and Jokhang temple (109D- E), or in Sera monastery

(226C-D) are convincingly attributed on stylistic grounds by von

Schroeder to Indian image-makers (brought to or produced in Tibet),

while other images like 108A, 109A, 284D or 286D in my opinion ap-

pear to be Tibetan castings in a more or less distinctive Pala style.

Whether they were manufactured in India or in Tibet, must remain an

open question. With reference to an Indian textual tradition, the author's

guess however favours an import of these statues since "details such as

garments and jewellery have traditionally been designed to conform with

the local fashion" (p.216). If this holds true – and I doubt – for all Indo-

Tibetan material, things would be much easier than they in fact are.

The sculpture of "Pa l a and Re la ted S ty l e s (ca.750-1200 AD)"

from northeastern India, i.e. from the present Bihar and Bengal, is docu-

mented in three chapters (III-V): metal statues, stone and wood models

of the Mahâbodhi temple and of related shrines at Bodhgaya with an appendix on the cult of the stupa, and miniature stone carvings.138

Among the 135 Indian brass, gilt copper and silver objects is an excep-

tional crowned Shakyamuni commissioned in memory of the Korean

pilgrim to the Silk Road, Hui Chao (8th century) and cast in Nalanda

during the 10th century. It is now preserved in the Potala Palace, the

only known Indian metal image with a Chinese inscription, apparently

engraved next to a Sanskrit dedication in the same Pala-Indian work-

shop (70.4-B). Furthermore there are four (of five) magnificent crowned

Tathâgatas of the 11th century Kurkihar style with inlaid precious stones and glass in the Potala collection (78-81); two Cakrasamvara lotus man-

dalas of the late Pala period in the Jokhang (103C, 104C), whose com-

positional design was a major inspiration for the three large gilt Tibeto-

138 Regrettably Indian and "Nepalo-Tibetan" miniature carvings, which are subject to

difficult regional attributions anyway, are separated into vol.I (p. 369-405, India) and

vol.II (p. 885-909, Nepalese works in Tibet, and Tibet).

126

Chinese mandalas of the early 15th century in Sakya monastery, in the

Tibet Museum at Lhasa, and in the Potala Palace (349B, 350A-B, 35IA-

B), and a 40 cm high Green Tara, a late Pala masterpiece, whose Indian

origin according to the author is not only indicated by its stepped pedes-

tal and inlaid glass "stones", but also by its highly elaborate throne archi-

tecture (110C).

A masterful study on its own is the chapter on the architectural repli-

cas of the Mahâbodhi temple at Bodhgaya, which were manufac-tured there between the 11th-13th centuries, and even at the imperial

court of the early Ming in the 15th century. They served either – when of

multi-component type and larger size – as models for the reconstruction

of this Buddhist sanctum sanctorum elsewhere, or as gifts for Tibetan

monasteries like those at Narthang (vol.I, figs.IV-4,5) and still preserved

in the Potala Palace (111, 112).139 The smaller models carved in one

piece served as votif objects for visiting pilgrims in lndia (111-118). As

stressed by several arguments in BST some of these miniature architec-

tures are possibly the work of Burmese craftsmen, who were engaged in

the first major restoration of the Bodhgaya temple around 1098. The

most faithful copies like the 48.5 cm high sandalwood shrine in the

Potala collection (111A-H) can be considered invaluable contemporary

documents for the reconstruction of this most sacred Buddhist temple

in India (fig. 18).

The vast material of miniature stone-carvings in the Potala collec-

tion (p.368-405) allows a representative survey on these northeastern

Indian or Burmese "mobile arts" of 11th and 12th centuries which were

carried along the pilgrim routes to Nepal and Tibet, to be copied and

modified there by local artists (p.885ff.). The discussion on whether

these easily portable images, which may have had a significant influence

139 There can be no doubt that next to the Yongle reign marked model at sNar thang

monastery (no more extant) the other "lndo-Chinese' large-size model preserved in the

Potala collection (pl. 112) was carved on stylistic grounds at the early Ming court in

Nanjing or Beijing.

127

on style and iconography in Tibetan art, were manufactured by Indians,

Burmese, Tibetans or Newaris, is focussed by von Schroeder primarily

on Indian ateliers with serious arguments, contradictory and speculative

attributions of similar miniature sculptures to Tibetan workshops140,

which at that time would not have developed the same refined artistic

know-how in this field. However, while such a theory may characterise

the essentially formative period of 11th century, it must not necessarily

have the same "exclusive" value for the later phase of the Second Diffu-

sion of Buddhism in Tibet (phyi dar), when Tibetan artists had achieved

the "Indian standard".141

Von Schroeder distinguishes between "North-Eastern India", those

images, made in India and brought to Tibet, and the "Indian Works for

Tibetans" understood as manufactured by Indians in Tibet (why not also

in India, like larger images such as 120B-C?), with Tibetan monks illus-

trated, a Tibetan inscription or a Tibetan seal at the back. This classifica-

tion however remains speculative in several cases, like for example in

121B-E, 122B, 122D, etc.

A selection of well-known stone plaques depicting the "major events in

the life of Shakyamuni" (128A- 131C) serve to clarify the Indian-

Burmese issue in late Pala dynasty art as discussed in recent publications.

Here the author offers positive answers to questions of cross-cultural re-

lations such as the origin of the "short-necked Buddha", whose proto-

type was probably "developed in Eastern Bengal and spread from there

140 As forwarded by C.L. and J.C. Huntington, Leaves from the Bodhi Tree. The Art of

Pala India. Dayton, 1990, p. 359-363.

141 The almost complete lack of Tibetan miniature carvings from 11th-13th centuries in

BST is additionally explained by the author with the little appreciation for stone sculp-

ture in Tibet. This theory however, which would principally exclude early works of an

previously foreign art tradition produced by indigenous craftsmen, may not finally

meet the Tibetan art reality and lead to the wrong conclusion, that most of the early

foreign styles were practised on a high aesthetic level by foreign artists only. How fast

Tibetans were able to follow the Newar style of around 1300 on the highest niveau, is

shown by some early 14th century murals on the inner walls of the Yum chen mo Lha

khang corridor at Shalu monastery signed by Tibetan painters.

128

to Burma" (p.394), from where it might have been reintroduced by

Burmese craftsmen to Indian Buddhist centres like Bodhgaya.

While the method to group all the statues according to their stylistic

identity and provenance, distinctive historical periods, individual sites,

and even specific technical traditions like for example clay statuary, cor-

responds to and results logically from the different material in situ, a

classification into gilt copper and non-gilt brass sculptures like in the au-

thor's lndo-Tibetan Bronzes (1981) gives priority only to technical "cata-

logue-type" categories over the art historical context, which one may

prefer as a more appropriate guide.

Of significant scholarly value and pioneering research is the presentation

of a small corpus of ea r l y T ibe tan meta l scu lp tures preserved in

the Lhasa Jokhang, Potala Palace, and in the Mindröl Ling (sMin grol

gling) monastery, attributed in BST to the Imperial Period ("Yarlung

dynasty"; p.736-769,7th-9th centuries), hitherto terra incognita in Tibetan

art history.142 Probably with the exception of a seated Buddha (182C-

E)143, eight copper and silver figures are convincingly documented as

the oldest surviving castings from Tibet, whose archaic style as well as

their composite Hindu and Buddhist or partially enigmatic iconography

basically indicates influences of Nepalese Licchavi period statuary

(compare 177B with 147B). However this does not seem to properly

142 Occasional attempts to date Tibetan metal images in Western collections to the ca.

8th or 9th century have failed in my opinion, including a most recent example of a su-

perb 51,4 cm high seated Vairocana of the early phyi dar period, published as "9th cen-

tury" in P. Pal, Himalayas. An Aesthetic Adventure, New York, 2002 (exhibition Chi-

cago in 2003), no.109.

143 See for analogous, though not really "similar" ca. 11th century Nepalese and Tibetan

style images BST 216 and 294E. Compare also 182C-E with a probably 11th century

Buddha image (head and physiognomy!) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New

York (no.1995.106: "9th-10th century"). Von Schroeder does not give arguments for his

"ca. 9th century" date and this nevertheless remarkable statue remains stylistically iso-

lated without anything comparable from the supposed early period. The facial features

and the proportions of the head would rather suggest a ca. 11th century date.

129

correspond to classical Newari works like the contemporary wood car-

vings in the Lhasa Jokhang (compare 178A and 179D with 134F or

135B. (figs. 91-94; compare fig. 93 with fig. 108).

An excellent sub-chapter of the "Tibetan Imperial Period" is dedicated

to the copies and variations of early Yarlung dynasty and Kashmir style

images, produced by an outstanding artist, the Tenth Karmapa

Chöy ing Dor jee (Chos-dbyings rDo-rje, 1604-74), a multi-talented

and eccentric artisan among the high-ranking Tibetan clergy (p.796-

819).

Based on earlier studies by David Jackson144, von Schroeder, with the

help of some 17th century inscriptions on three ca. 7th or 8th century

copper images (174-176), and using extensive biographical texts made

available and translated by Cyrus Stearns and David Jackson, has been

able to connect some works with the Tenth Karmapa. Altogether there

are 11 metal, ivory and wood statues that he attributes to this hierarch,

who not only had a particular passion for the Kashmir and early Tibetan

style, but also copied and transformed - in a very personal manner -

Chinese Buddhist and Tibetan paintings of the Yuan dynasty and other

periods (figs. XII-23, 24, 25).

By establishing this small corpus of sculptures and paintings of an indi-

vidual artist, the author has unveiled a few mysteries of chronology and

provenance, like for example of three Sarasvati images in the Potala

Palace (194A-D) and in the Rietberg Museum (Zürich) collections,

made a thousand years after the older models (178, 179), and thus a new

contribution to the general problem of stylistic copies in Tibetan art.

One would however hesitate to label this specific renaissance of early

styles as a revival "school" since it seems to be related too exclusively to

an individual artist without having effected a broader production be-

yond his "atelier". Further sculptures and paintings may turn up in the

future connected with the oeuvre of the Tenth Karmapa, which has

144 Jackson 1996, op cit., p. 247-258.

130

been, as it is admiringly reported by his biographer, a real "delight for

the eye".

Unlike the only extant monumental sculptures of Yarlung dynasty Tibet,

the clay bodhisattvas and guardians at 'On Keru Lha khang of ca.

820/830145, the simple and considerably reworked stone carvings in

Lhasa's Drag lha Lu pug (Brag Iha klu phug) cave sanctuary do not pre-

sent reliable stylistic clues to state that "more than half of them" can be

attributed to Nepalese craftsmen of the ca. 8th century as von Schroeder

suggests (p.729, 732-733).146 One may rather consider a late 11th century

date for the earliest carvings during the Second Diffusion of the Bud-

dhist faith, at a period when stylistically similar pillar decorations were

most probably added to the reconstruction of the Jokhang.

The overall order of the material in BST (Nepal in vol.I, Tibet in vol.II)

has led to an unfortunate separation of the ea r l y wood ca rv ings in

the Jokhang , completely illustrated here for the first time (vol.I, p.

407-431), from the Tibetan Imperial Period chapter (vol.II, p.721ff.),

where one would expect these incunabula among the earliest Buddhist

sculptures made in Tibet, despite the fact that they were manufactured

by Newari artists. Like most of the doorway carvings on the ground and

upper floors, the figural carvings of four pillar bases may not "probably"

(BST, p.411) be attributed to the initial construction period of the 7th or

8th century, but they can be safely dated to that period by all stylistic evi-

dence, by comparing the ornamental design of these pillars to other

post-Gupta sculptures in Nepal and India.147 Although most of the nar-

145 Vitali 1990, op.cit., p.1-35.

146 Von Schroeder's tentative dating is based here on the Tibetan text tradition and on a

modern Chinese publication (CPAM Xizang, "An inspection of the grottoes at Chala

lufu in Lhasa" [in Chinese], Wenwu, 9/1985, p. 51-64). Both however are not accept-

able for a more precise dating of these stone carvings.

147 See for example M.C. Slusser, Nepal Mandala. A Cultural Study of the Kathmandu

Valley, Princeton, 1982, plate 298, 267. For the Jokhang atlant fig.VI-10, I can see no

evidence regarding a possible "later replacement" (BST, p. 411). Later carvings in the

Jokhang of 11th or 12th century can be seen with practically all pillars of the north,

131

rative sceneries on the four pairs of doorway lintels illustrating appa-

rently the Jâtaka and Avadâna tales and legends, cannot be precisely

identified, BST describes their iconographic vocabulary in as much as

the present state of our knowledge allows. The iconography of these

earliest "Buddha stories" in Tibet however would still deserve a detailed

investigation of the related literary text sources which presumably can

be found in the once very popular Gaôçavyûha sûtra (The Garland Su-

tra of the World)" 148, a parallel literary narrative on the life of the Bud-

dha, whose text tradition was especially connected with Khotan, a Bud-

dhist metropolis in Central Asia from where not only the Chinese trans-

laters obtained this last part of the Avataõsaka sûtra (as seen by them),

but probably also the patrons and artisans of the Lhasa Jokhang149.

If we accept this textual basis at least as a main source, the Jokhang lin-

tels depicting the pilgrimage of the Indian prince Sudhana and his en-

counter with various gods and kings, monks and hermits, laymen and

maidens, who all represent the Buddha nature, would be meant to serve

as an example to master the different stages of the pilgrim's journey and

spiritual development along the gradual path towards ultimate truth and

enlightenment.

The identification of most of the Jokhang pillars and carvings with aca-

cia wood (p.407) goes back to the Fifth Dalai Lama's dkar chag to this

temple (1645: "seng ldeng"). Its correctness however remains uncertain.

south and west section on the ground and first upper floors (see for example Precious

Deposits. Historical Relics of Tibet, China. Beijing, 2000, vol.1, p.155).

148 See Amy Heller, "The Lhasa gTsug lag khang: Observations on the Ancient Wood

carvings". The Tibet Journal, vol.XXIX, no.3, 2004, p.3-24.

149 See for a detailed study on this sutra Jan Fontein, The Pilgrimage of Sudhana. A

Study of Gaôçavyûha illustrations in China, Japan and Java, 's-Gravenhage, 1966; and for a completely illustrated (Chinese) cycle: The Life of Buddha Shakyamuni and the

53 visits of Sudhana. Buddhist Culture Research Institute of China, 2 vols. Hongkong,

1996. See also D. Klimburg-Salter, The Life of the Buddha in Ta-pho Monastery,

Himachal Pradesh. Text and Image, South Asian Archaeology, 1995, Delhi 1997, vol.2,

p. 673-690.

132

The only region in Tibet where acacia catechu has been possibly en-

demic, would be the southernmost Kongpo border areas to India. A

common Tibetan wood for building construction is juniper which could

be safely identified in the pillars and beams in this temple.150

Although decorative si lverware like the well-known but nevertheless

still enigmatic "Wine Jar of King Songtsen Gampo" in the Lhasa Jo-

khang (fig. 95) does not actually belong to Buddhist statuary, it must

have played an important role among Tibetan arts and crafts during the

Imperial Period, as it is documented by Chinese literary sources and

similar objects recently found in Tibet. This only major silver vessel of

its kind still preserved in Tibet (though apparently not at its very original

site) and illustrated properly in BST for the first time has been subject to

different speculations ranging from being a modern replica from the

1940s (H. Richardson 1977), a Sassanian original of 7th to 9th centuries

(Su Bai 1996), an 8th-century Sassanian-influenced Sogdian work from

Tadzhikistan (BST, p.747, 792-95), to a Tibetan amalgam of Sogdian

style and iconography combined with Chinese and Tibetan motifs of the

ca. second half of the 8th or early 9th century (A. Heller 2002)!

The characteristic long-sleeved and amply-cut robes indicate apparently

a Tibetan origin of this jar whose dancing figures otherwise would em-

phasize Central Asian models from Sogdiana, combined with certain

Chinese motifs and thus reflecting a somehow "international" vocabu-

lary in earliest Tibetan art, corresponding to the early empire's extension

allover Central Asia.151

150 Two samplers from different wooden structures in the Lhasa Jokhang (in one case

taken from one of the most ancient pillars in the eastern section) were identified by

Dr.Bräuning, Geographical lnstitute of Stuttgart University, as juniper. The wood of

the carved lintels however must not belong necessarily to the same species.

151 For a most recent discussion with further references see Amy Heller, "The Silver

Jug of the Lhasa Jokhang. Some Observations on silver objects and costumes from the

Tibetan Empire (7th-9th century)", www.asianart.com. 2002. According to Heller, who

also questions von Schroeder's theory of a bacchanalian iconography, foreign elements

like the Sogdian-style dancers, Chinese musical instruments, and the more amply de-

signed Tibetan robes as well as specific ornamental patterns and the hammered tech-

133

Although nothing really comparable with the antique "Western" figural

style exists, the latter hypothesis seems to be closest to the truth.

Tibetan text sources confirm indeed the existence of several silver beer

vessels with animal heads (among them three depicting a camel) said to

be buried in "treasure tombs" in the Yarlung Valley152 or hidden by

King Songtsen Gampo and rediscovered in later times as "treasures"

gter ma) like it is traditionally known in connection with the Jokhang jar

for Tsongkhapa, who would have offered it to its present place in

around 1409. Due to style and technical condition the horizontal friezes

must have been added when the silver pitcher was obviously recon-

structed in 1946 and reportedly reworked over a stone bowl made to

contain and to keep the chang beer which has been offered since then(?)

by the pilgrim.153

For reasons of context and chronology one would have preferred to

find the most sacred Buddhist image of Tibet, the Jowo Shakyamuni

or " Jo bo R in po che" (fig. 96), like the early wood-carvings in the

Jokhang or the Arya Avalokiteshvara in the Potala Palace, as part of the

nique of the non-repoussé section would indicate a manufacture of the Jokhang silver

jar in Tibet, an opinion, which is also supported by Prof. Boris Marshak of the State

Hermitage Museum at St.Petersburg, the foremost expert on Sogdian art and silver-

ware.

152 Like at Yum bu bLa mkhar, See Eric Haarh, The Yarlung Dynasty, Copenhagen,

1969, p. 354.

153 Except the year 1946 the partially illegible inscription does not give further informa-

tions on this gter ma, but seems to refer to the rediscovery and to a major renovation

or reconstruction at that time, when at the same occasion it was reportedly regilded as

told in the memoirs of a Lhasa official (oral communication by Dr.Joachim Karsten,

1998). The "mysterious" stone vessel inside (rdo gyam, "carved stone", according to

Tibetan informants) has been most probably manufactured for the reconstruction of

the silver jar in 1946, although local tradition claims that it was made at Tsongkhapa's

time. According to Kah thog Si tu's report of around 1920 this silver jar was found by

Tsongkhapa(?) in Drag Yerpa (Brag yer pa), east of Lhasa, and would have been origi-

nally used already by the Yarlung dynasty rulers to contain chang beer offerings for

secular celebrations (Kah thog Si tua'i dBus gTsang gNas yig, Lhasa, 1999, p. 93). Du-

ring the Cultural Revolution the chos rgyal khrung ban was stored in the Norbulingka

Palace, to be "rediscovered" once more, an extraordinary "treasure" indeed, in 1979.

134

Tibetan Imperial Period chapter (XII) instead of being classified sepa-

rately under "Nepalese Schools in Tibet" (chapter XV, p.926-929).

However von Schroeder's attribution of this palladium of Buddhist

Tibet to a Nepalese artist of the "11th to 13th century" (BST, p.926) is

purely speculative and remains without any positive stylistic, literary or

other arguments.

Although several historical texts record restorations and replacements of

the crown (the present one dates from the time of the Thirteenth Dalai

Lama), of the throne-back (Skt. prabhâmandala, Tib. rgyab yol), and of the baldachin architecture (Tib. bla bre), they are quite silent with regard

to the proper image.154 Many layers of repeated cold-gildings and the

somewhat idealised and "ageless" style of a highly revered "archetype"

statue make a dating of the Jowo difficult. The proportions as well as

the stylistic rendering of the robe - when the Buddha can be seen un-

dressed during the ceremony of a complete regilding - and the way its

folds are drawn seem to make, in my opinion, a pre-17th century date of

the present statue at least in its surface condition today quite unlikely.155

No other Tibetan or Nepalese metal image156 can be really compared on

stylistic grounds with the Jokhang Buddha, although the latter's overall

design may well follow an earlier icon and thus intentionally reproduce

somehow the "classical" Jo bo che ba, "the Great Jowo", as it has been

traditionally called, with reference to the "Small Jo bo" in the Ramoche

154 See Michael Henss, The Cultural Monuments of Tibet. The Central Regions, forth-

coming, chapter I.3.

155 This became evident during a complete regilding of the Jo bo sponsored by the re-

viewer in 1994. Although the two volumes of BST were "humbly presented" to the Jo

bo Buddha, its author was apparently not humble enough to avoid, in accordance with

the religious rules in the Jokhang, the publication of a photograph of the image when

undressed (pls. 215B-C).

156 See for example the other proportions of the head and the different style of the

body and the robe of the Buddha statues in the same central chapel of the Jokhang

(215D, late 11th century), in Nyethang (199A, 309C), of the Jo bo Buddhas in Sakya

(around 1300) and Gyantse (1425), or at Tashi Lhünpo (1461, not identical with BST,

fig. XVI-1).

135

temple (vol.I, fig.XV-I). Besides the repoussé work of the lower

prabhamandala section the proportions and the compositional features

of the head and the design of the lotus base also seem to recall the over

life-size Jowo Buddha in the Potala Palace of the late 17th century (sit-

ting next to the Fifth Dalai Lama image of similar size) and comparable

monumental metal statuary of that period.157

These stylistic considerations are supported by the long i n s c r i p t i o n

on the back of the baldachin architecture surmounting the Jowo

(fig. 97), which records a comprehensive renovation under the Fifth

Dalai Lama (not the Fourth Dalai Lama as claimed by von Schroeder)

"from the 18th day of the first month until the 25th day of the twelfth

month in the Water-Ox Year" (1673).158 The oldest part of the whole

decorative metal work around the actual Skakyamuni statue is apparently

the upper bracket section of the canopy architecture (with semi-precious

stones added during the renovation in 1673), which corresponds exactly

to the architectural style of the Sakya-Yuan period (compare Shalu mon-

astery!) and thus would be the original work of the genius Newari artist

Aniko (Chin. Anige, 1244-1306) from 1262, as it is recorded in the

well-known "guide" to the Lhasa Tsuglagkhang by the Fifth Dalai

157 When at the occasion of a regilding ceremony for the Jo bo chung ba in the Ramo-

che on 21stJune 2000 I was able to see the undressed statue, the design of the robe and

especially the facial features and the proportions of the head indicated quite clearly - in

agreement with von Schroeder's identification - a Nepalese workmanship of the

Tibetan phyi dar period, 11th or 12th century (fig. XII-12, p. 739, and fig. XV-1, p. 910).

158 This inscription which I copied in full length in 1981 and which, so far as I know,

has never been recorded and translated, presents a wealth of detailed information

about the donations of countless jewelleries and precious stones for the reconstruction

of the whole throne and canopy architecture and of the prabha-mandala decoration

(not only of the throne-back as stated in BST!), including 75 names of (mostly) Newari

and Tibetan artisans. The main responsible person for these works, bLo bzang mThu

stobs (as mentioned in the inscription), was the administrator of the Ramoche temple

under the Fifth Dalai Lama (see Sangs rGyas rGya mTsho, Life of the Fifth Dalai

Lama, vol.lV, part 1, transl. from the original Tibetan by Zahiruddin Ahmad, Delhi,

1999, p. 267.

136

Lama.159 Except for this baldachin architecture and the huge Bai ta si

Stupa in Beijing (1271) no other works by Aniko have survived. It seems

however that, if it was not made by his own hand, the artistic essence

and milieu of this gifted architect, painter and image-maker might be

recognized in a painting, like the famous Cleveland Tara160, which on

stylistic and iconographic grounds alone must be ascribed to a Nepalese

artist working for Tibetan patrons in the third quarter of the 13th cen-

tury.

It would be surprising indeed not to find any stylistic equivalent among

Tibetan metal sculpture. Although BST seems to confirm the contrary

in the chapters on Nepalese works and schools in Tibet and Yuan China

in the 13th century, the Nepalo-Tibetan style of Aniko – as we may re-

construct it – and his artistic heritage does exist in a small number of

copper images dating to the second half of 13th century, some of them

with sophisticated metal inlays, all of them characterised by a late Pala

style in a Newar-Tibetan interpretation. A Green Tara in the Potala Col-

lection (fig. 98) can be regarded as a sculptural counterpiece to the

painted Tara in the Cleveland Museum of Art, while an Avalokiteshvara

Padmapani in the Tibet Museum at Lhasa represents the same style on

the highest quality level (fig. 99; compare also fig. 100).161

159 The semi-precious stones were doubtlessly added to these Chinese style metal

brackets in 1673, and it seems very unlikely that the present bracket system of the

upper baldachin section would be a 17th century copy replacing the original metal

structures of the 13th century (with much probability by Aniko in 1262).

160 An artistic relation between the Cleveland Tara and the presumed style of Aniko

was also suggested by Steven M. Kossak in Sacred Visions. Early Paintings from Cen-

tral Tibet. New York. 1998, no.37.

161 In my opinion several mostly non-gilt copper statuettes of ca. 15-25 cm in height

may possibly represent an "Aniko sculptural style", including probably even direct fore-

runners, characterised by a basic Pala design and "feeling", however of non-Indian

make, by elegant postures and movements, and in some cases with a highly refined

inlay work, and similar double-lotuses:

- Green Tara, Lhasa, Potala Palace Coll.; Xizang Budala Gong, Beijing, 1996, plate 298.

137

Among the clay statues in the Jowo sanctum, plate 215D does not illus-

trate the Mi 'khrugs pa alias Dîpaïkara Buddha in the back of the Jowo,

but the original image of Thub pa Gangs chen mtsho (rgyal), a form of

Vairocana, which was erected here between 1076 and 1087, together

with the present twelve bodhisattva clay statues of which one would

have expected at least one example to be illustrated in BST, despite their

slightly less authentic condition compared with the approximately con-

temporary clay bodhisattvas at Nyethang monastery near Lhasa.

The s ta tues a t Nye thang shown without the usual brocades (p.860-

869) indicate in my opinion an earlier date to the second half of the 11th

century (BST, 199B-200H, 199F,G: “ ca.1200”.162 The style and even

specific motifs of their characteristically pleated robes (199B-E, 200B,C)

recall the wall-paintings of Drathang monastery, datable to 1081 -1093,

apart from 11th century Nepalese elements and from the different stylis-

tic idioms existing simultaneously during this early formative period

(which should not be misunderstood by a chronological interpretation!).

They also recall the 11th century statuary at Yemar (vol.II, fig. XIII-3). - Green Tara, Lhasa, Tibet Museum(?); Xizang Lishi Wenwu Xuancui, Beijing, 2001, ill.

p. 178-179.

- Avalokiteshvara Padmapani, Lhasa, Tibet Museum; Precious Deposits, 2000, op.cit.,

vol.lIl, no. 23.

- Bodhisattva Maitreya, Lhasa, Tibet Museum; Xizang Lishi Wenwu Xuancui, op.cit.,

ill. p. 172-173.

- Avalokiteshvara, Newark (USA), The Newark Museum; V.Reynolds, From the Sacred

Realm. Treasures of Tibetan Art from the Newark Museum, Munich-New York 1999,

ilI.p.224.

- Vajrapani, Philadelphia Museum of Art; P.Pal, Tibet. Tradition and Change. Albu-

querque (USA), no.50.

- Avalokiteshvara Padmapani, Sotheby’s New York 22.3.1989, no.282.

See on these images reflecting possibly the “Anige style” M.Henss, Is there any “Anige

Style” in Nepalo-Tibetan and Tibeto-Chinese Metal Sculpture of the Sa skya-Yuan Pe-

riod? Third International Conference on Tibetan Art and Archaeology, Beijing,

15.10.2006 (Proceedings, forthcoming), and in: Palace Museum Journal, no.5, vol.133,

2007 (Beijing), p.51-66 (in Chinese).

162 See Henss 1996 (Early Tibetan Sculpture), p. 109, fig. 9.

138

An earlier date, to the decades after Atisha had died in Nyethang (in

1054), is further supported by the overall composition and the style of

the haloes compared with those at Drathang and in the Jokhang sanc-

tum (both of late 11th century), and also by the lotus petals of the bases

and the characteristic crown blades, by the lions of Amitayus throne,

and by the fact that metal images of 11th or 12th century have survived

here (which were most probably manufactured at Nyethang), for an

early temple building at this site.

As to the essential role Nyethang played for Atisha, it is quite unlikely

that a first major sanctuary was erected only 150 years after the master's

death. In the Blue Annals 163 his main disciple Domtön ('Brom ston) is

said to have "built a vihâra at sNye-thang", and according to another

source, some stupas with (part of) his relics, his personal meditation

images, and a corporal relic of Naropa brought by Atisha toTibet, did

exist in the sNye thang ‘Or temple164, also known as sKu 'bum Iha

khang, the oldest building of the monastic complex at Nyethang (now

reconstructed). In addition von Schroeder's dating is based on a misun-

derstanding in Alfonsa Ferrari's annotations to mKhyen brtse's farnous

guide-book of 1892, wrongly identifying a monastic settlement of bDe

ba can established in 1205 with the actual Nyethang temple.165

Besides the Nyethang statues, the chapter (XII) on Tibetan clay sculp-

tures discusses Yemar Lhakhang (figs. 101, 102) and other sites south

of Gyantse with the most refined images of 11th century south of

Gyantse completely demolished during the Cultural Revolution in the

late 1960s, but fortunately photographed and partially documented be-

163 G. N. Roerich, The Blue Annals, Calcutta, 1949, reprint Delhi, 1988, p. 263.

164 After a 20th century Tibetan biography "compiled from the Tibetan sources", in A.

Chattopadhyaya, Atisha in Tibet. Calcutta, 1967, p. 439; A. Ferrari, mKhyen brtse's

guide to the Holy Places of Central Tibet, Rome, 1958, p. 72, note 668.

165 Op,cit.,note 668. bDe ba can is however identical with Rwa stod monastery (as it

was later named), which still exists some three miles southwest of sNye thang (see

Roerich, Blue Annals, op.cit.,p. 542).

139

tween 1937 and 1948. However Heather Stoddard's theory166 used by

von Schroeder to explain the much discussed Central Asian stylistic ele-

ments of these images (as a result of the activities of Tibetan monks

who sought refuge in northeast Tibet after the demise of the Imperial

Period and returned to Central Tibet during the second half of the 10th

century), does not really match the historical and cultural-geographical

circumstances.

“Cent ra l As i a” would consequently be understood as territory of the

later Xixia kingdom, but no Tangut or related cultural relics exist from

that early period, and of a similar style to the "Nine Bends of the Yellow

River" in the Minyag border-areas of northeastern Tibet! The specific

style of the Yemar statues and of their lost relatives between Shalu and

Drathang (BST, p. 832-851), which one should recognise as a very crea-

tive Tibetan transformation of foreign inspirations, cannot just be traced

back to proper "Silk Road" models, but seem to have its closest roots –

beyond their distinctive differences – between Dunhuang and Bezeklik.

Here can be found among the wall-paintings of 9th and 10th centuries

(and very likely among former statues as well), an analogy to late

“Gandharan mannerism” of exuberant robes and draperies with charac-

teristic neatly-pleated folds, elements of a comparable colour palette in

the ornamental design, and similar floral motifs as well as body and head

halos.167 Which other paintings and statues would in fact represent “dis-

166 H. Stoddard, "Early Tibetan Paintings: Sources and Styles (11th to 14th centuries

A.D.)", Archives of Asian Art, vol.XLIX, 1996, p. 30-37.

167 For example Dunhuang caves nos. 36, 99,158, 327, Bezeklik cave no.3. See M.

Henss, "A Unique Treasure of Early Tibetan Art: The Eleventh Century Wall Paintings

of Drathang Gonpa", Orientations, June 1994 (p. 48-53), p. 52; and a slightly revised

version in: Tibetan Art. Towards a definition of style, ed.by J.Casey-Singer and

P.Denwood, London, 1997, p. 168-169 (and fig.187). The probable Bezeklik-style con-

nection is also forwarded by Marilyn M.Rhie, "Eleventh-Century Monumental Sculp-

ture in the Tsang Region", in: Tibetan Art. Towards a definition of style, ed.by J.Casey-

Singer and Ph. Denwood, London, 1997, p. 41, fig.10.

140

tinct artistic traditions accessible to Tibetans in the second half of the

tenth century”, as suggested by Heather Stoddard?168

How these artistic ideas and models from the Silk Route reached Tibet,

whether through "note-books" of the artists or portable paintings and

smaller images, remains a mystery. Certainly not via metal statues, such

as an unpublished Vairocana of exactly the "Yemar style" in a private

Chicago collection (fig. 103), a piece which reflects this specific formal

tradition and illustrates that (seen from a more general art historical per-

spective) monumental clay statuary and portable metal sculpture were

more oftenly interrelated than von Schroeder's partially rigid 'catalogue

style' classification suggests.

One wonders why von Schroeder does not give more credit to the

oldest surviving clay statues at 'On Ke ru Lha khang, opposite Yarlung

Valley and not far from Samye monastery, except for a photograph

taken by Roberto Vitali (vol.II, fig.XII-2), which, even without any fur-

ther commentaries, would make more sense (a hundred pages ahead) in

connection with "Tibetan Clay Sculptures". Although restored and re-

painted several times, the bodhisattvas and guardians were, with the ex-

ception of the central Buddha, convincingly attributed by Vitali to a

slightly later reconstruction period of the8th century temple during the

first half of 9th century. The fact that the ancient patina has eroded

should not justify the exclusion of these incunabula of Tibetan statuary

in BST.

The royal clay images in the "Dharma King Meditation Cave" of

the Potala Palace (p.852-859) have until recently remained one of the

prominent mysteries in Tibetan art history. Their well-known popular

attribution to the legendary foundation period of a first residential castle

168 H.Stoddard 1996, op cit., p. 29.

141

on the Potala hill has never been questioned and has found even sup-

port among modern Western as well as Tibetan and Chinese scholars.169

It is remarkable that the essential question – even without stylistic con-

siderations and speculations about the proper statues of whether there

were any building structures and other activities on the dMar po ri

between the 7th and 17th centuries, has been never raised in modern

publications. Tibetan historical texts also do not record shrines or stat-

ues for the centuries after the Imperial Period until the construction of

the present Potala Palace in 1645.170 Although von Schroeder's tentative

date for these images to the 14th century is only based on some specula-

tive proposals by Hugh Richardson and Eberto Lo Bue, and not on spe-

cific positive arguments, he is finally quite close to the stylistically earli-

est possible physiognomy of the royal effigies of the 14th or 15th century.

However, I am not confident of a pre-1645 manufacture for the Potala

royalty and would prefer to characterise them as archaistic works in an

169 See on this subject also here p.35-37 and fig. 12-14, and the publications by M. Rhie

1988 and Jam Yang 1994 (BST, References, p.855). The very fact that the concept of a

secular king as an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara can be traced back only to the 11th

century (inscription an the wall-paintings in Tabo monastery, Spiti, from 1042: "this

king, personification of a god"; D. Klimburg- Salter, Tabo. A Lamp for the Kingdom.

Milan, 1997, p. 258), rules out for mere iconographic reasons an earlier date of the Po-

tala statues.

170 In his dkar chag from 1645 the Fifth Dalai Lama mentions these (?) statues of

Songtsen Gampo and his wives in the central sanctuary of the upper floor section in

the Jokhang, and, including the images of the king's son and his two ministers, "in the

present shrine in the center of the [ancient] king's palace" on the Potala hill; see

A.Grünwedel, Die Tempel von Lhasa, Heidelberg, 1919, p. 46f., 73. Though the Fifth

Dalai Lama account may give the impression of an already existing pre-1645 "royal

sanctuary" it probably refers to the earliest structures of the new palace, which were

just completed before the dkar chag was written. Residences of eminent teachers an

the dMar po ri are recorded for about 1076 in the Blue Annals (Roerich 1988, op.cit.,p.

70, 71, 93). In 1240 a "Potala'i Lha khang" is said to have been destroyed by the Mon-

gols (Bad rgya tshig mdzod chen mo, Great Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary, 2 vols. ed.

Beijing, 1993, vol.II, p. 3229, without further reference).

142

ideal "imperial style" of the mid-17th century.171 (see for example

fig. 107). The hypothesis of an archaistic "historical style" would not

only find support in the concept of ideological continuity from a secular

ruler to bodhisattva and back, but also by some recently discovered

wall-paintings of the 17th century (and not of 7th century as believed by

local experts) which present comparable royal figures drawn in an early

"monarchic style".172

The closest parallels to the royal statues in the Potala and in my

opinion probably their actual models, are the very similar, yet slightly

"more ancient" and less elegantly designed clay statues in the Lhasa

Jokhang. They have been preserved until 1966, mentioned in BST in a

single line (p. 855: "of unknown age").173 Although they pose analogous

problems of chronology like their Potala counterparts, a 14th century

date - the earliest possible on pure stylistic grounds -seems to be very

likely. This would be confirmed not only by the building history of the

Lhasa Tsuglagkhang, but also by at least two Tibetan text sources, ac-

cording to which the Jokhang kings and queens were commissioned un-

der the 'Tshal pa khri dpon, one of the Yuan period monarchs of Tibet

and the actual ruler of Lhasa towards the middle of the 14th century.174

171 That the rGyal rabs gsal ba'i me long chronicle from 1368 does not mention the

royal statues on the Potala hill (however the most sacred image of Arya Avalo-

kiteshvara) or in the Jokhang, might be explained either by the simple fact that they did

not exist yet, however more likely by their less importance compared with the principal

sacred statues at those places.

172 A Mirror of the Murals in the Potala, Beijing, 2000, plates p. 141-143.

173 The pre-1966 royal statues in the Jokhang were replaced by replicas in the 1970s.

174 See Loden Sherab Dagyab, Tibetan Religious Art. Wiesbaden, 1977, p. 36: "commis-

sioned according to the Chinese tradition of art"; Chab spel Tshe brtan Phun tshogs: Lha

sa gTsug lag khang gi lo rgyus rags bshad (Explanation of the History of the Lhasa Tsug-

lagkhang), in Bod ljongs zhib jug, Lhasa, 1982/1, p. 20; M. Henss, King Srong btan sGam

po Revisited: The royal statues in the Potala Palace and in the Jokhang at Lhasa. Prob-

lems of historical and stylistic evidence. Essays on the International Conference on Tibet

Archaeology and Art, Beijing 2002. Chengdu 2004, p.128-171.

143

An additional support for this chronology would be the fine brass image

of king Songtsen Gampo (312D-E) and some related figures in the

Potala Palace, tentatively, yet apparently correctly dated by von Schroe-

der to the 14th century, a period for which, as I believe, the characteristic

Yuan-style dragon design and the "Faltenstil" of the robe both give fur-

ther support.175 Such metal images may have served as models for the

royal clay statues in the Jokhang.

The attribution of a group of twelve metal images to the "Zhang

Zhung Kingdom of Weste rn Tibe t" (figs. 104, 105), presented

as a sub-chapter of the Tibetan Imperial Period of ca. 600-842 AD

(vol.II, p.771-791) comes, as the author rightly says, as a major surprise.

Whatever has been written so far on Zhang Zhung in terms of territo-

rial, historical, religious and archaeological identity, it did not contribute

much to outline a firm cultural profile of this rather legendary, unveri-

fied kingdom to the West of the Central Regions (dbUs and gTsang) of

Tibet, by which it was conquered towards the middle of the 7th century

and became fully integrated into the Tibetan empire during the follo-

wing decades. Thus there was no more "Kingdom of Zhang Zhung" for

the period von Schroeder attributes the statues of this chapter!

No artefacts or other safe archaeological data have ever come to light to

establish a Zhang Zhung identity. Not a single object of such a prove-

nance was found during Guiseppe Tucci's exploratory travels in western

Tibet in the 1930s, in the course of the Chinese excavations at Tsa-

175 Compare also the garment design of 312C, which can be similarly found on fabric

borders of Yuan dynasty kesi or embroidered thangkas. To the same group of ca. 14th

century metal sculptures (compare also BST 305-306) may also belong 221D/E, a

"princely donor depicted as Amitayus (?)'' (BST: 11th /12th century), provided that it

was not an earlier proto-type analogous to some princely donors in the late 11th century

wall-paintings at Drathang monastery.

144

parang in the1980s, nor during John Vincent Bellezza's thorough field

research in the western Changthang plains in the 1990.176

Any other existing Buddhist art in the greater area of western Tibet is

limited to provincial Kashmir style rock-carvings of ca. 8th to 10th cen-

tury in Ladakh, Lahaul-Spiti and Gilgit-Baltistan. With a complete lack

of archaeological finds, the historical evidence for an alleged "Zhang

Zhung art" remains at least vague. If we accept that "Yang t'ung", as

described by the Chinese pilgrim Hui Zhao (Hui Ch'ao) in 726, situated

"to the north-east of Kashmir", is identical with Zhang Zhung, the geo-

graphical determination would lead us - different from the "Kingdom of

Great P'o lu (Bolor)" mentioned in the same passage - to a cultural

no-man's land, where not even a simple place-name indicates a Buddhist

site or "centre" of a presumed "Zhang Zhung Kingdom".

By accepting the existence of a "Zhang Zhung art", this kingdom would

have been buddhisised by the new rulers from the Yarlung dynasty, but

this is unlikely an assumption, given that the new faith, which became

an acknowledged official power in central Tibet only during the second

half of the 8th century, had a substantial impact in far-away western

provinces at the same time or earlier. However Buddhism in the wes-

ternmost Himalayan borderlands at that period came from the West, a

fact which can be supported indeed by the stylistic physiognomy of

most of the "Zhang Zhung" statues as claimed in BST. According to

von Schroeder this discrepancy - patrons from the East and images with

a stylistic provenance from the West - could be explained by the pro-

bable fact that the latter may have been commissioned by the Zhang

Zhung rulers from outside, i.e. from "western" artists, who were trained

in the style of the Greater Kashmir Gilgit area.

Such a theory however overlooks that some "Zhang Zhung images" like

184 or 189A-C do not fit into the Greater Kashmir style pattern and

rather recall several statues of the Yarlung dynasty group, which, as 176 See The Site of the Ancient Guge Kingdom, ed. by The Administrative Commitee

of Archaeology of the TAR, Beijing, 1991; J. V. Bellezza, Antiquities of Northern

Tibet, Delhi 2001; S. Hummel, On Zhang Zhung, Dharamsala, 2000.

145

established in BST, is ultimately too small and too heterogenous that

there would be no more "space" for further additions from among the

early material. On the other hand, it may underestimate the stylistic vari-

ety and the provincial derivatives among the Buddhist sculptures from

such a large "Greater Kashmir" area (like the Kashmir Valley, Swat and

the Afghan borderlands, Gilgit, Ladakh, or Spiti) if one excludes those

images, which do "not fit into the general patterns" of these regions.

Thus, I cannot see the twelve so-called "Zhang Zhung statues" as an

isolated group. A major obstacle for a Zhang Zhung provenance or sty-

listic identity is the fact that the latter is completely created by negative

factors rather than positive arguments in relation to any single safely

attributable object. And what would be, in regard to Buddhist iconogra-

phy of almost the entire group (183-188) and beyond Hui Zhao's

account of the phantom land of Yang t'ung177, the Buddhist evidence

for the Zhang Zhung Kingdom at a period before the Buddhist king-

dom of Guge, where according to historical texts, the state religion un-

der the 33 kings was Bon, prior to annexation by Tibet?

seems to have remained the cultural driving force and coexisted

along with the new faith still during the Yarlung dynasty period. To

introduce a "Buddhist Kingdom of Zhang Zhung" hardly meets the ac-

tual situation in the far West, since Buddhism seems to have reached, at

least from central Tibet, these territories only at a time when Zhang

Zhung was no longer a kingdom of its own.

Technical evidence also does not favour a Zhang Zhung art hypothesis.

The sheer fact that most of the statues are made of brass and thus in-

dicative of probably a "western" origin, is not acceptable. The three

copper images of the "Zhang Zhung group" however cannot support

such material - based geographical attributions and instead points to a

Nepalo-Tibetan origin, although this remains questionable as well, since 177 Where exactly or approximately "some Buddhist activities in Western Tibet from at

least the late 7th until the middle of 9th century" (BST, p.773) can be located, remains

however enigmatic.

146

copper is also known from Kashmir (see Hui Zhao's account of 726).

And "different kinds of iconographic influences and development"

(BST, p.774) can be regarded as general characteristics of earliest

Tibetan art, or an indication that these images belong to very different

traditions instead, as postulated in BST, to the Zhang Zhung Kingdom

of western Tibet.

The whole Zhang Zhung issue of Buddhist metal images does not go

beyond an interesting idea. Patrons and production centres, provenance

and stylistic profiles appear as abstract as the geographical and cultural

identity of the Zhang Zhung Kingdom itself. Quite naturally von

Schroeder has no other choice than to make his own hypothesis even

more complicated and less clear-cut when suggesting an origin "from

the Tibetan dominions in the Western parts of Central Asia" (BST,

185A-B).

What is then left for "Zhang Zhung" except being a kingdom in search

of its location between Kailash and Karakorum, and its images imported

somewhere from "the West of Central Asia"? And what is the use of the

"facial characteristics" for an attribution to Zhang Zhung, when they are

completely overpainted by a later cold-gilding (an essential limitation to

the physiognomical identity of many sculptures documented in BST!)?

From my point of view there is no convincing way to separate this ma-

terial from the greater Swat, Kashmir, Gilgit and Hindu Koosh areas,

whose artistic variety would be, seen from an "Zhang Zhung eye-view",

most certainly underestimated. I have little doubt that similar sculptures

can be found among the material from Baltistan to Swat, like for exam-

ple rock-carved bodhisattvas in the Swat area, with even comparable

facial feature.178

Is there not a higher probability of considering the Tibetan dominions at

the edge of those territories and very much in the area to which the sty-

listic essentials of the so-called Zhang Zhung images must be traced 178 Compare BST 185C and 187C with figs.1,2 in: Anna Filigenzi, "Buddhist Rock

Sculptures in Swat, North West Pakistan". South Asian Archaeology, Delhi, 1995,

vol. 2, p. 625-635.

147

back? For example, they could be the little known or studied "Bolorian

Tibet", i.e. the greater area of Bolor (including today's Baltistan), or, as

part of the Indo-Iranian borderlands, Little Bolor (Tib. Bru zha) con-

quered by the Tibetans in 735. These could be possible places for the

statues, which do not really fit into usually accepted patterns of "Kash-

mir and beyond", like for example the bodhisattvas 185A/B and 185C-

E, or the Saraswati 188A-C? In these parts of the Tibetan empire since

ca. 678 and ca.720 AD respectively, Buddhism was flourishing as the

dominant religion until the 10th century. And in regard to geography and

cultural data, we are on much safer ground here than in "Zhang

Zhung"!

In all historical texts Zhang Zhung is the name of a Bon Kingdom or

confederation believed to have existed in western and northern Tibet,

apparently covering the border areas up to the westernmost gTsang,

around present Lhatse county. It remains however somewhat strange

that one cannot find a single image among the twelve "Zhang Zhung

statues" which can be labelled as non-Buddhist or Bon179, although I am

aware of the difficulty to define a pre-or non-Buddhist iconography for

that early period at all.

Only three early Bon sculptures of ca. 13th and 14th century are docu-

mented in BST (299 B,C,D), which may be explained by the fact that

the collected material comes exclusively from Buddhist monasteries, al-

though the few surviving ancient sculptures in present Bon monasteries

of central and southern Tibet would hardly make a substantial addition.

The largest chapter of the two volumes (p.53-209) refers to the

"Grea te r Area of Kashmir , Gi lg i t , and sPu rangs Gu ge"

from 7th to 12th century. This broad geographical spectrum covers the

whole material from Swat and Kashmir, the western Himalayas (Ladakh,

179 What does the "early non-Buddhist Bon cult of Indian origin" (p.772) mean? This con-

tradictory claim goes obviously back to David Snellgrove's Indo-Tibetan Buddhism,

London, 1987, p. 391, 400-405, 473, where "Bon" is partially understood as a sort of

transformed and unorthodox Buddhism originating in lndia! In this case however the

characterisation of Bon as "non-Buddhist" would not be logical.

148

Spiti, and adjacent regions), and western Tibet (Guge, Purang). A sepa-

rate and largely artificial category of "Kashmir or Western Tibet" can be

avoided by summarising practically all statuary from these areas into

styles such as "Kashmir Schools in Western Tibet", kha che lugs,

the style derived from Kashmir, as seen from a Tibetan perspective.180

This very general label however does not help much to determine - as

far as it would be possible - specific characteristics for a "pure" Kashmir

work, be it made in Kashmir proper and brought to Tibet (like, for

example, the Kha tse bodhisattva (vol.I, fig.II-5)181, or be it produced by

a Kashmiri artist (or from Himachal Pradesh) in western Tibet as

claimed by von Schroeder for nearly all sculptures of the "Kashmir

Schools in Western Tibet" in this chapter, or be it for identifying spe-

cific elements of a western Tibetan stylistic tradition that means to es-

tablish certain criteria of local styles in Guge, Spiti, Ladakh and beyond

(more or less closely based on Kashmir art conventions). However even

this would remain largely guesswork and in regard to the mobility of the

artists and ateliers, von Schroeder (p. 76) rightly questions the value of

geographical attributions in the western Tibetan realm and gives priority

to the style according to which an artist is trained, instead of to the place

where an image was produced.

By attributing all statues after the 8th century to the "Kashmir Schools in

Western Tibet" the author gives the impression that there was no more

180 See for a more detailed discussion of the Kashmir-Western Tibet problem in art his-

tory Michael Henss, "Buddhist Metal Images of Western Tibet, ca.1000-1500 A.D.

Historical Evidence, Stylistic Considerations, Modern Myths". The Tibet Journal (ed.

by Erberto Lo Bue), vol. XXVII, no. 314, 2002, p. 23-82.

181 The life-size masterpiece, photographed by Thomas Pritzker (Chicago) at its original

site mKhar rtse (Tholing district, Nga ri, Province) in 1999, and also published in Huo

Wei Li Yongxian, The Buddhist Artin Western Tibet, Beijing, 2001, pl. 276, is identified

in BST (p.70) with a statue commissioned by Rin chen bzang po in 998 during his stay in

Kashmir, which also confirms the date of this master's first journey to the West of ca.

987-1000, respectively his return to Guge in 999/1000 (BST, p.138: in 985) as suggested

by Luciano Petech (in Klimburg-Salter, 1997, op.cit., p. 234).

149

art production in Kashmir itself during the following centuries except

"Kashmir in exile"!182

Thus the "disadvantage" and the problem of the "Kashmir Schools in

Western Tibet" is simply the probable fact that, although a great deal of

the Kashmiri-style images may well have come from Guge and beyond,

too many statues are being attributed in BST to western Tibetan ateliers

(whose artistic capacity and potential might be slightly overestimated!),

and that no attempt is being made to indicate differences between an

artist from Kashmir and from Tibet, or to consider the existence of

more modestly designed works from Kashmir proper.183

The very complex reality of the Kashmir-western Tibetan art production

seems to resist the art historian's ambition of establishing groups and

criteria for everything. The artist usually follows, when abroad and

working for foreign patrons, his own indigenous style and aesthetic tra-

ditions, while on the other hand he may incorporate specific characteris-

tics.184 Only from this background one can follow (but hardly accept,

despite the fact that this chapter runs under India in vol.I) von Schroe-

der's restriction to those sculptures "which were made by Indian artists

for the sPurangs Gu ge kingdom between about 950 and 1150" (p. 68).

However can the amazing stylistic variety of all these images185 be ex-

plained simply by different origins and local artistic traditions among the

artists from Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh?

182 Only three ca. 10th or 11th century images of modest quality are labelled as "Kashmir"

(53A-E), but an which grounds, compared with many similar "Kashmir Schools in

Western Tibet" statues in BST, remains unclear!

183 Which criteria for example would help to characterise 31B/C, 44A/B, 45C, as "Kash-

mir" or (as labelled in BST) as "Kashmir Schools in Western Tibet"? Or by which argu-

ments is 35A/B classified as "Kashmir" and the very similar images 32A/B, 33, 34A/B,

and 34C/D as "Kashmir Schools"?

184 See for similar suggestions by the author with regard to the Pala Indian-Tibetan

issue, BST 282A, 284D, 286D.

185 30A-C, 31A-C, 37A-C, 38A-C, 39C-E, 40A-C, 41B-E, 42A/B, 43C-E, 44B, 45C-E,

46B, 47B/C.

150

I cannot see any conclusive reasons for attributing 43C-E, 46B, or 47C

to an Indian artist and would even rule out a western Tibetan origin for

46B and 47C due to the complete lack of adequate stylistic criteria. And

where were the statues of the "Kashmir Schools in Western Tibet"

manufactured, presumably by Tibetans, of which one would have ex-

pected at least an author's choice?186

The striking fact that by far the majority of the pre 11th century sculp-

tures collected in BST comes from the Greater Kashmir area, the pri-

mary source of Buddhist inspiration at the time, is convincingly ex-

plained by the dominant role of Buddhism between the Swat, Kashmir,

and Gilgit valleys, and by the Tibetan suzerainty over the border regions

along the Hindu Koosh and Karakorum during the 8th century.187

Doubtless the great Buddhist revival during the 11th century in Guge

(where by then a reservoir of already trained and highly skilful Kashmiri

and other foreign artists from the western Himalayas, Nepal, and even

central India188 provided the many new shrines with magnificent im-

ages), introduced and inspired a "Second Diffusion" of Buddhist statues

in the Central Regions as well. Here, in the rising heartland of Buddhist

Tibet, the refined metal casting of sacred images had almost no indige-

nous tradition at the turn of the millenium. So it was only natural that

foreign masterworks and artists (?) such as from Kashmir and western

Tibet were well-received, although compared with images from Nepal

186 In spite of the author's limitation to western Tibetan statues made by Indian artists

(p. 68) five images are presented as "Western Tibet", apparently meant as being made

by Tibetans (43A/B, 66A-E).

187 It cannot be ruled out that for good historical reasons some of the early 7th and 8th

century statues from Kashmir and Gilgit like for example the large seated Maitreya in

the Jokhang, 52A-F (published already, including the main part of its inscription, in

Henss 1996, op.cit., p. 61, fig. 9, "overlooked" by von Schroeder) came to Tibet already

during the 8th century.

188 The main statue in the bar khang of the Tho ling gSer khang was reportedly made

there by an artist from Magadha; R.Vitali, The Kingdoms of Gu-ge Pu-hrang, Dharam-

sala, 1996, p.312f.

151

and eastern India, they did not have any notable stylistic influence on

the sculpture in Central Regions.

The latter phenomenon may be explained by the generally greater num-

ber of Indian and Nepalese artists working in Tibet (because of the

much closer distances) in a more regular and effective cultural South-

North connection compared with the West-East contacts (and the

rather isolated geographical position of the Guge-Purang kingdoms!). It

can also be explained by the sheer chronological fact that Indo-Nepalese

art traditions had a much more significant continous influence on the

Central Regions during the formative period of Tibetan art of the 11th

through 13th centuries than the mostly earlier Kashmiri and western Ti-

betan statues of ca. 8th to 11th or 12th centuries. The impact of Kashmir

art upon western Tibet finds a parallel only in the Pala-Indian domi-

nated Tibetan sculptures and paintings of the 11th-13th centuries. How-

ever with regard to the different historical and geographical conditions

and crossroads it was less exclusive and concentrated.

What was Buddhist sculpture alike in western Tibet after the more or

less completely Kashmir-style dominated production (including some

occasional works of 'visiting' Nepalese and east Indian artists) of the 11th

and 12th centuries?189

The pursuant political changes and cultural decline in the entire Guge

and Purang area are reflected by the art production, which became more

and more provincial in the 13th and 14th centuries, moulded by regional

styles from western Nepal and especially influenced by the art traditions

from the Central Regions of Tibet. This "international style" in its wes-

tern Tibetan version between Alchi and Tholing (more easily identified

with wall-paintings and thangkas than for metal images), had largely ab-

sorbed and eliminated the earlier western Tibetan art profile. Conse-

quently any attribution of Tibetan sculptures (no more in situ) dating to

ca. 1200-1450 to Guge or to the western Himalayas has turned out to be

very speculative. Whether a Buddha Vajrâsana of a distinctive Pala style

189 See for a more detailed discussion Henss 2002, op.cit.

152

was cast in a western Himalayan workshop only because of its Æâradâ inscription (in my understanding not a definetive proof for such a

provenance) as claimed in BST (307A) remains doubtful. The lack of

any Kashmir-western Tibetan style elements for this 12th century brass

image and some other related statues190 does not support such a hy-

pothesis. A direct connection from eastern India to central Tibet would

be preferable.

Twenty years ago von Schroeder created the myth of "Weste rn

T ibe tan bronzes" in his first book, referring to a large group of

mostly 14th century images of a specific tathâgata type (fig. 106, see

also fig. 16, and fig 129), although without convincing arguments for

this theory.191

Copied in countless other publications, these "Western Tibetan" statues

are categorised now in BST simply under "Tibetan monastic period''.192

It is remarkable that the author does not seek to clarify what conside-

rable confusion this has caused. Instead, an anonymous responsibility

for all these wrongly identified images is preferred, which were "alter-

nately attributed by some scholars (!) exclusively to Western Tibet or ex-

clusively to Central Tibet by other writers" (p. 82). The fact that even

von Schroeder's thorough research did not succeed in identifying spe-

cific casting centres except those at some major sites like Lhasa ("at the

foot of the Potala palace"), Gyantse and Tashi Lhünpo monasteries, and

in the Lho brag, Lho kha and Yar lung regions in southern central Tibet

190 Compare metal images of this type in U.von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes,

Hong Kong, 1981, 38A/F; Marcel Nies, Spirit of Compassion, Antwerp, 1995, p. 38f;

Zhongguo Zangchuan Fujiao Jintong Zaoxiang Yishi (The Art of Tibetan Buddhist

Gilt Metal Statues in China, 2 vols., Beijing, 2001, vol.1, no.73.

191 Von Schroeder 1981, op.cit., p. 156,193. See for another view Henss, 1996, p. 62-63,

and for a more detailed discussion Henss 2002, op.cit.

192 BST 313A, 314C, 315A-E, 316A-C, 317E, 318B-E. Same "traces" of this western

Tibetan myth can be still found in BST, like for example with 297C, a modest Tibetan

casting in the Pala style manner without distinctive elements of an origin in the western

Himalayas, which one may better add to similar groups of provincial Indo-Tibetan

schools of the 11th and 12th century, like for example 294E-298D.

153

(p. 699), this allows not more than a general attribution of the "tathâgata type" sculptures to the Central Regions of Tibet. Although metal statues

related to western Tibet of subsequent periods are announced for chap-

ter XVIII, not a single one can be convincingly presented here since

they simply do not exist in Tibetan monastic collections, except in 15th

and 16th century Tsaparang and beyond, a chapter on Tibetan statuary

of its own, which is outside of the reviewed book (fig. 129).

One of the many values of BST lies in the precise iconographic identifi-

cations of the individual objects or at least in the attempt to describe

and determine the images according to the best possible standard of our

present knowledge. Numerous entries include detailed iconographic dis-

cussions, like for example on the crowned Buddha (p. 50, 110, 144, 246,

264), on the seated Buddha Maitreya or Shakyamuni in bhadrâsana pos-

ture (pls. 25A-E, 255D, 258A, etc.), or on the Buddha Vajrâsana as the

often more correct alternative to the usually "Akíobhya" Buddha with the vajra in front (pls. 255E, 271D, 307A and B, etc.).

Bibliographies should be compiled in my understanding with con-

crete reference to the book to which they are added, and not as blown-

up "lists on Tibetan art". Around 400 (!) entries of the Western language

bibliography in BST do not show a specific relation to the subject mat-

ter, either in text or in illustration, and many more are without any refer-

ence to the individual chapters and descriptions of the objects. Authors

such as for example Casey-Singer, Goepper, Hummel, Jackson, Klim-

burg-Salter, Mitra, Norbu, Pal, Reynolds, Richardson, Stearns, Stoddard,

Tanaka, or Tsultem, turn up with their complete publications, no matter

if they are specifically connected with BST or not. One may forgive

amateur-writers the inclusion of titles like Allen's Search of Shangrila,

Demeter's Kailash, or Van Strydonck’s Bhutan picture album, but won-

ders what a professional author has found for BSTin Berger's Origin of

the Needle-looping in Tibet, in Helmut Neumann's contributions on the

wall- paintings in Mustang and Guge, or in the Tibetan Medical Thang-

kas? And what is the sense to list up my own book (1981 ) without

having gone through it, just to notice otherwise that the largest 26-metre

154

tall Maitreya statue at Tashi Lhünpo monastery was manufactured in

1914-16 instead of "1461" (fig. XVI-1, p. 994).193

I may have overlooked in 1344 pages a hitherto undiscovered connec-

tion between Buddhist sculptures of Sri Lanka and in Tibet or some yet

unexplored sources in ancient non-Buddhist Indian texts, but I cannot

find a reason to include titles by Leopold and Ulrich von Schroeder ex-

cept for the benefit of the author's ego. At least about ten entries in the

Chinese language bibliography (referring to Beijing, Dunhuang, Kum-

bum and Labrang monasteries, and Wutaishan) seem to be superfluous

for BST, and references to Japanese secondary sources like Daizo or

Nanjio remain a mystery for further investigation. To the Tibetan lan-

guage bibliography one may add a text of the Drigung school founder

'Jig rten mGon po (1143-1217) on metal images, especially since nine-

teen statues in this principal monastery are documented in BST194, or a

Treatise on the Essential Knowledge of Crafts with a section on Tibetan

metalcraft techniques by the scholar 'Jam mgon 'ju Mi pham rGya

mtsho (1846-1912), the only so far available Tibetan text on this subject

except the well-known Tibetan Classification of Buddhist lmages Ac-

cording to their Style as published by Guiseppe Tucci in 1959.195

Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet, a groundbreaking corpus of cultural relics

in present-day Tibet and a masterful combination of field research and

academic scholarship, is doubtlessly more than just the latest addition to

this survey on significant research works on art and architecture in

Tibet. This stupendous reference work has come like a modern gter ma,

193 See Henss 1981, op.cit., p. 227. The date of 1461 refers to the still well-preserved 11

metres high gilt copper Maitreya in the three-storey separate shrine in the western sec-

tion of the main assembly hall, designed by sNar thang pa dpon po Byang rin (see also

Jackson 1996, op.cit., p. 98f.).

194 The Collected Writings [gSung 'bum] of 'Brigung Chos rje 'Jig rten mGon po Rin

chen dpal, Delhi, 1969/71, vol.II, p. 10-13 (in Tibetan).

195 Chandra L. Reedy, "A Tibetan text an metalworking from the collected writings of

'Ju Mi-Pham", Historical Metallurgy, vol. 25, no.1, 1991, p. 37-46.

155

a 'treasure' book, as a mine of information and inspiration. Its enormous

amount of material and insight could be reviewed here only in some as-

pects. And many more questions and answers than we have referred to

in these comments will keep us busy, as collectors or connoisseurs,

as students of Buddhist sculpture or as advanced lovers of Tibetan art.

A d d e n d u m

Since the publication of my review of Ulrich von Schroeder’s „Buddhist

Sculptures in Tibet (2001) in ORIENTAL ART in 2003, only a few

smaller studies have contributed to our knowledge in the field.

In her “Observations on the Ancient Wood Carvings” in the

Lhasa Tsuglagkhang (2004) Amy Heller discusses the probable lite-

rary sources for the narrative relief cycles on the doorway lintels of the

early chapels in the inner Jo khang. A principal text source, so Heller,

would have been here the Gaïçadavyûha sûtra, whose 70 chapters are describing in detail the encounters of the young boy Sudhana with 53

gods and sages, among them Manjushri, Maitreya, Avalokiteshvara and

Shiva, on his pilgrimage to Supreme Enlightenment and Ultimate Truth.

This “pilgrim’s guide to Buddhism” was meant to serve as an exemplum

of a believer’s spiritual progress on his gradual path to Buddhahood. As

the last and longest section of the very popular Avataõsaka sûtra, which

was compiled in Khotan and translated into Chinese for the first time in

the early 5th century, the Gaïçadavyûha sûtra must have become known in Tibet via the Buddhist monastic centers along the southern and

northern Silk Routes during the 7th or 8th centuries.196 However one can

hardly identify so far any narrative scenery of the Jokhang carvings with

these texts.

196 Heller 2004, who associates this sûtra for the Jokhang carvings even with the royal

Vairocana cult in early Tibet, however without concrete and convincing references to

the lintel carvings. What Heller relates to the Amitâyur-dhyâna-sûtra (fig. 9), can be

more likely identified as a jâtaka tale (BST, 143 I). And what she identifies as a “mahâ-

siddha” (fig.11), is in fact a Vajrapuruía, “personified vajra”, BST, 135 F), whose cult

was popular in Nepal at about the same period.

156

Von Schroeder interprets the depicted episodes, at least some of them,

probably more convincingly as (unidentifiable) jâtaka tales or as stories

from the avadânas, legendary accounts of the great deeds and achieve-

ments of the Buddha and Buddhist saints, such as for example the Story

of the Hare (pls.134 G-I). The latter panels would be according to

Heller “apparently related to the Amitâyur-dhyâna-sûtra, the Sutra of

the Meditation on Amitayus, which however exists only in a 5th century

Chinese translation and whose popularity among Nepalese artisans

working in early imperial Tibet seems to be questionable. And how can

the Gaïçadavyûha sûtra have served as a textual basis when, as Heller says herself, “the popularity of this text in Nepal cannot be documented

earlier than the late 11th or early 12th century”? There is no doubt that

both, as von Schroeder rightly claims (unfortunately without giving a

plan to locate the carved panels more easily), style and iconography of

the sculptural cycles indicate a Nepalese workshop of the initial con-

struction phase in the 7th or 8th century.

How difficult it ever may be, a more detailed research on the icono-

graphic program of the ancient Jokhang carvings remains a major desi-

deratum. According to Amy Heller, whose theory of an original residen-

tial core tower – which would have been transformed in the first half of

the 8th century into the actual Jo khang sanctuary – I have questioned al-

ready at the first presentation of her paper in 2003 (IATS Conference,

Leiden), the doorway carvings of the eight (not ten) lateral chapels in the

ground and first upper floor date to “post-780 to 835”.197 Not less

speculative and partly contradictory is Heller’s hypothesis (“based”on

which evidence?), whereafter all four central chapels of the north and

south sections with early carvings on both ground floor and first storey

would belong to a “reconstruction” of around 1050.

While despite all missing textual or archaeological evidence an original

residential structure at the Jokhang site may not be totally ruled out (like

197 Doubts about Amy Heller’s “from tower to temple” theory were also forwarded by

Slusser 2005 and A.Alexander, The Lhasa Jokhang – is the world’s oldest timber frame

building in Tibet? www-webjournal.unior.it, vol.1, 2006, p.123-154.

157

for the contemporary Khra ‘brug temple at modern Tsethang), the pre-

sent vihâra plan of the Jokhang with the northern, southern and eastern

lateral chapels on the ground floor and at least the eastern section on

the upper floor goes back with much probabiliy to the Songtsen Gampo

era of the mid-7th century.198 This early date taken up by von Schroeder

(p.407-431) is not only confirmed by two separately radiocarbon-tested

wooden beams199, but also supported by various contemporary and sty-

listically closely related relief sculptures in the Kathmandu Valley dating

to the ca. 7th century, which were the direct inspirations for the Nepal-

ese ateliers in Lhasa.

Neither von Schroeder nor I have noticed in situ that some lintels would

comprise some panels, “which could be moved to other locations, sub-

stituted, replaced or renovated” to allow, so Heller, later additions

during the reconstruction works in the 11th century. Which of the

twenty panels reproduced in BST would then be a later replacement?

Not a single of all these reliefs can be safely identified as a later addition

copied presumably some 400 (!) years after the other carvings.

A seventh or eighth century date for the doorway carvings is further

proved by the four atlant figures at the base of the tall pillars in the eas-

tern Jokhang section, which are pure Gupta style images produced after

equivalent prototypes in Nepalese Licchavi sculpture. These pillar shaft

decorations date without doubt to the early foundation period (BST,

vol.I, fig.VI, 7-10: “probably 7th century”). And what might have been

partially recarved, is certainly not “a later replacement” (BST, vol.I,

fig.VI-10). Have any contemporary Tibetan p a i n t i n g s survived

from the monarchic period of the 7th to 9th century? The early murals

in the Lhasa Jokhang, which were removed in the upper floor in 1985

and which are practically lost since then, were attributed by some scho-

198 For a more detailed discussion of the early architectural history and plan of the

Jokhang see Alexander 2006, op.cit., p.125, and Henss forthcoming, ch.I.3.

199 For the radiocarbon-tested datings of the 1990s see A.Alexander, The Temples of

Lhasa. Chicago 2005, p.54; Alexander 2006, op.cit.; and Henss forthcoming, ch.I.3.

158

lars to the foundation period of this temple. For predominantly stylistic

reasons, which cannot be decribed here in full detail, they must however

date very probably to the era of the first comprehensive renovation in

the 11th century, when the art of Pala India had been alrady introduced

to Tibet. Except a painted manuscript cover in a private Chicago collec-

tion, whose figural style can be compared with the wellknown Tibetan

style silk paintings from Dunhuang (early 9th century) the only other

paintings from Tibet of that period are two cloth fragments of a stan-

ding monk in a London private property. All appear to predate clearly

by style the now largely lost Jokhang murals, while the London paåas may be regarded as the only surviving examplesof early Tibetan monu-

mental painting of the ca. 8th century, without any distinctive Pala In-

dian, Nepalese or Silk Road connection (fig. 130).

In my own contribution on “King Srong btsan sGam po revisited”

(2004)200 I came back once more to the portrait statues of King

Songtsen Gampo and his retinue in the Lhasa Jokhang and in the

Potala Palace by presenting a more comprehensive and precise historical

and textual as well as iconographic and stylistic profile of these popular

clay images. – In the early historical period of Tibet, usually known as

sPu rgyal or “Yar lung dynasty”, the pre-Buddhist idea of divine king-

ship and of the heavenly origin of the Tibetan kings (Songtsen Gampo

as “son of the gods”, lha sras; Dunhuang text, 8th century) merged in the

foreign notion of a god-incarnate, which was introduced from India

during the 8th century. The royal epithet of a dharmarâja-cakravartin,

“King of the [Buddhist] Law and Wheel-turning Universal Monarch”, is

part of an inscription on a late 8th century rdo ring pillar at the imperial

burial site in the Yarlung Valley (‘Phyong rgyas).

Although the concept of a bodhisattva king, “the divinly manifested

grand Bodhisattva”, and of King Songtsen Gampo as a manifestation of

Avalokiteshvara was literally documented already since the time of King

Trisong Detsen (Khri srong lDe btsan, r.755-97; bronze bell at bSam yas

from ca.780, Jo khang rDo ring of 821/22), individual and monumental 200 Cf. Henss 2004, p.138ff.

159

representations of “Avalokiteshvara in form of a king” (Blue Annals,

1478/81) or of Songtsen Gampo as the “Great Compassionate Avalo-

kiteshvara” (Mani bKa’ bum, 12th century) did apparently not exist be-

fore the 14th century.201 The idea of a bodhisattva-king established du-

ring the monarchic period was closely related to the contemporary royal

Avalokiteshvara cult (sBa ‘bzhed chronicle). While Arya (‘Phags pa)

Avalokiteshvara was obviously recognized as Lord of the dMar po ri al-

ready in the 8th century, his human incarnation, the Tibetan king (and

later on the Dalai Lama), was possibly not regarded retrospectively its

principal wordly resident on the Potala hill before the 14th century.

Around or after 1328 Tshalpa Tripön Mönlam Dorje (‘Tshal pa khri

dpon sMon lam rDor rje, 1284-1346, r.1304-36), the actual ruler of

Lhasa and known for his promotion of a Tibetan national revival (and

thus of a kind of Songtsen Gampo cult), commissioned images of King

Songtsen Gampo and his wives, which were probably identical with

those clay statues once installed in the southern ground-floor section of

the Jokhang (no more extant).202 (fig. 13) These royal effigies dating to

the second quarter of the 14th century may have served as prototypes for

two similar sculptural groups on the western ground-floor (early 15th

century?) and in the central chapel on the upper floor’s western wing

(before or around 1645), and also for similar sculptures in the “Dharma

King Meditation Cave” (Chos rgyal sGru phug) of the Potala Palace.203

Do the Potala statues belong to the 7th, 14th or to the 17th century? An

unusually wide range indeed when discussing some of the most

201 According to the textual tradition a sandalwood effigy (sku dra) covered with silver is

said to have existed at 8th century Samye monastery, cf. Henss forthcoming, CH.VI,7.1.

202 Text source: Tshal Gung thang dKar chag (1782), cf. P. Sorensen / G.Hazod, Rulers

on the Celestial Plain. Ecclesiastic and Secular Hegemony in Medieval Tibet. A Study of

Tshal Gung thang, 2 vols. Wien 2007, p.199. See also Henss 2004, p.138ff. with more de-

tails on the historical attribution of the three royal image groups in the Jokhang,of which

the statues on the upper floor could be associated with a donation mentioned in the dKar

chag of the Fifth Dalai Lama (1645).

203 Cf. Henss 2004, p.145-151, with more details on the pre-17th century building history

of the dMar po ri.

160

wellknown and popular images of Tibet! While for several historical and

distinctive stylistic reasons the Potala group must be attributed to the

17th century, this late date may be also supported by the Fifth Dalai

Lama’s own “secret visions” in 1660, when Avalokiteshvara trans-

formed himself into King Songtsen Gampo to speak to the Great Fifth

that he should make an image of that king as a cakravartin like (it

existed) in the Lhasa Jokhang.204

My study “Is there any ‘Anige Style’ in Nepalo-Tibetan and Tibeto-

Chinese Metal Sculpture of the Sa skya Yuan Period” (2006)205 was sup-

posed to reconstruct in more detail the presumable sculptural style of

the famous Nepalese image-maker Aniko (A ni ko, Chin. Anige, 1245-

1306) as well as the probable direct influences on and the reflections in

“Nepalo-Tibetan” art between Sakya in 1261 and the Mongol capital at

Dadu (today Beijing) until the early 14th century.

Since the actual aesthetic profile of this artist without oeuvre has re-

mained virtually unknown – so far not a single existing statue has been

safely attributed to this leading multi-talented master-artisan at the Yuan

court – the initial inspiration to establish what might be called the

“Aniko style” in the second half of the 13th century came from a

group of small size copper images of superb quality, which all are cha-

racterised by a very similar and highly refined Pala-influenced figural

204 For the text source see S.Karmay, Secret Visions of the Fifth Dalai Lama. The Gold

Manuscript in the Fournier Collection Musée Guimet Paris, London 1988, p.48. In his

dKar chag from 1645 the Fifth Dalai Lama mentions however some images of Songtsen

Gampo and his retinue in an “assembly hall (gtsug lag khang) being located in the center

of the [former] palace of the king of Tibet”; cf. A. Grünwedel, Die Tempel von Lhasa.

Heidelberg 1919, p.73, and for another translation in Three dKar chag, Delhi 1970, p.41.

The exact identity of these no more existing statues (from 1645?) remains unclear. Or

does the present Chos rGyal lha khang (or “Dharma King Meditation Cave”) correspond

to the “gtsug lag khang” mentioned in the Fifth Dalai Lama’s text? And were in this case

the presumably 14th century royal statues replaced or reworked in the 1640s?

205 Paper given at the Third International Conference on Tibetan Archaeology and Art,

Beijing 2006 (summary in the Abstracts), and published under the same title in Chinese

in: The Palace Museum Journal, 5/2007, p.51-66, and in English in the Proceedings,

2008 (forthcoming). See on Aniko also Anning Jing 1994.

161

style not found among “pure” Kathmandu Valley sculpture and not in

Tibet at that period.

On the way to establish this group of basically Newar-inspired statuettes

a small Tara “painting” in sl it tapestry technique (kesi) in the

Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, has been instrumental206, a specifi-

cally precious medium, which was in high esteem at the Aniko work-

shops of the distictive (fig. 125) Tibetan-Buddhist milieu at the Mongol

court. With much probalitity this kesi was produced at or for the Yuan

court during the later 13th century and thus represents, at least in a wider

range, the Aniko art tradition as it was prevalent in the imperial ateliers

at around 1300.

The Green Tara at San Francisco reflects clearly the Newar art tradition

in Tibet, which is illustrated in the best way by one of the finest pain-

tings to exist, the Green Tara in the Cleveland Museum of Art. With

good arguments the Cleveland Tara has been associated with and even

attributed to Aniko207 and it was very probably painted in the Sakya

milieu when in 1261/62 Aniko stayed at this then most important mon-

astery under Yuan souvereignty. Both, the woven and the painted Tara

can be well compared with some very similar copper images of our

“Aniko group” such as a Green Tara in the Potala Palace (figs. 98, 99,

100), and two in composition and quality extraordinary Vajrapani sta-

tuettes in the Philadelphia and Lhasa museums, or four images of

Avalokiteshvara Padmapani.208

In view of their stylistic characteristics and their art historical position

the Cleveland and San Francisco Taras as well as some of these copper

206 Cf. Henss 2007, ill.p.59, and in: Latter Days of the Law. Images of Chinese Bud-

dhism 850-1850, ed.by M.Weidner, Honolulu 1994, pl.5 (“Xixia Kingdom, early 13th

century”.

207 See Kossak in Kossak/Casey Singer 1998, no.37. According to the Yuan Annals

(ch.203) Aniko said to Khubilai Khan upon his arrival at the Mongol court (in late

1262) “that he had accomplished the task assigned to him at Sa skya in two years

(1261-1262)”, Vitali 1990, p.104.

208 Cf. Henss 2007, op.cit., ill.p. 59,57,61-63.

162

images may have been produced by Aniko or his atelier in Sakya in the

early 1260s or later on at the Mongol court respectively. – This group of

fine metal images seems to reconstruct and represent the profile of the

lost Aniko oeuvre more precisely than the murals at Shalu monastery of

the late 13th and early 14th century, which were associated with Aniko

and his workshop at the Yuan court.209

In the same paper I have attributed the upper section of the gilt copper

prabhâ-maôçala (rgyab yol) of the Jo bo Shakyamuni in the Lhasa

Tsuglagkhang to Aniko (fig. 96). The two nâga kings and the garuda

on top, both of exceptional quality, follow directly Nepalese antecedents

in iconographiy and style. And likewise can the foliate scroll ornament

only be compared with 13th century Newari metal and wooden work.

Style corresponds to textual records. The dkar chag guide to the Lhasa

temples by the Fifth Dalai Lama (1645) documents a “throne-back for

the throne (gdan khri rgyab yol) [to the image] of the Jo bo rin po che

[to be made] by the Nepali A ni ka gui gung la”.210

According to the same source the reconstruction of the decorative work

was commissioned by Sakya Zangpo (Sa skya bZang po), “the principal

of the Sakya leaders” (dPon chen Sa skya’i) and the acting abbot of Sa-

kya from 1260 until ca. 1270. There he must have been Aniko’s patron

in 1261, shortly before the young Nepalese artisan came to Lhasa. – It is

more than likely that the still existing upper part of the Jo bo prabha

decoration correponds to the Fifth Dalai Lama’s text, almost 400 years

after the actual work on this palladium of Buddhist Tibet, and thus it

209 Vitali 1990, p.103ff.; Henss 2007, and Henss (Beijing Proceedings) 2008.

210 A. Grünwedel, Die Tempel von Lhasa. Heidelberg 1919, p.56: Sa skya’i dpon chen gyi

thog ma Sha kya bzang po bal po’i A ni ka gui gung la bzo bar zus nas… For another

Tibetan edition of this text (lHa ldan sprul pa’i gtsug lag khang gi dkar chag shel dkar me

long, 1645) by the Fifth Dalai Lama see Three dKarchag, Delhi 1970, p.30 (see also the

Lhasa edition 1987): „The foremost Sakya leader Shakya bZangpo offered an especially

magnificent throne-back (rgyab yol, Sanskrit: prabha) for the throne of the Jo bo Rin-

poche, for which he had asked the Nepali A ni ka gui gung la to make (it)“; Henss 2007

and 2008, op.cit.

163

would confirm the identification of the only surviving figural metalwork

by this genius artist.

The name “A ni ka gui gung la” refers probaly to the imperial title

“gung” belonging to the second class nobility in Yuan China, or was

eventually associated with gung ma, “leader”.211 A Mongol prince in

Lhasa had reportedly donated silver for “an ornate throne” of the Jo bo,

executed under the supervision of the same Sa skya bZang po, made “of

white silver, supported by lion(s), horse, peacock, and elephant”.212 –

Also the characteristic Chinese dougong (chin. “curved brackets sup-

porting square wooden blocks”, tib. Phagma dekyog) bracket system of

the upper baldaquin (or canopy; bshugs sgrom) architecture surrounding

the image must date by mere stylistic criteria to the 13th century and be-

longs very probably to Aniko’s reconstruction in the Jo bo sanc tua ry

(fig. 97). The dougong bracket architecture was, however, not a com-

plete novum in Tibet. Earlier proto-types of more archaic design are

known from 11th century temples (Shalu, Kyangbu, Nyethang).

While the introduction of the abovementioned “Aniko style group” of

copper statuettes (not represented in BST) into Nepalo-Tibetan sculp-

tural arts can be based only on stylistic arguments summarized briefly in

this addendum, it may also contribute to the “style school of art his-

tory”, which in the words of Rob Linrothe “is regularly discredited”.213

Rob Linrothe, an appreciated scholar not only in Tibetan art, but also

well experienced in related Indian and Chinese fields, has written, as far

211 S. Ch. Das, Tibetan-English Dictionary, Delhi 1995, p.220.

212 Dkar chag of the Fifth Dalai Lama, Grünwedel 1919, op.cit., p.56. See also M. Henss,

The Jo bo Buddha of Tibet: History, iconography and art. 11th Seminar of the Interna-

tional Association for Tibetan Studies (IATS), Königswinter/Bonn 2006, Abstracts. With

reference to the same text of the Fifth Dalai Lama it was also suggested by H.Richardson

that the “gilded copper screen…was perhaps the work of…Aniko” (The Jo-khang “

Cathedral” of Lhasa, in: Essais sur l’Art du Tibet, ed.by A.Macdonald and Yoshiro

Imaeda, Paris 1977, p.169), and also by U.von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet.

Hongkong 2001, vol.II, p.1238.

213 R. Linrothe, Orientations, December 2002, p.52-54.

164

as I see, the only other more comprehensive résumé of Buddhist Sculp-

tures in Tibet.214 His well readable contribution came (in late 2002),

however, probably due to limited space, more as a synopsis of the book

under review than as a detailed discussion of the various research topics

presented and challenged by BST. With regard to the intermediate pe-

riod from the ca. mid-9th until the late 10th century, generally seen as a

great cultural gap between the early Imperial Period and the “renais-

sance” or Second Diffusion of Tibetan Buddhism (phyi dar), Linrothe

argues, unfortunately without concrete examples, that von Schroeder

would give too much credit to Indian and Newar artists when he dis-

cusses miniature stone carvings and in general the revival of sculpture in

the late 10th century. In correspondance with BST it should be however

evident that all those pre-13th century votif tablets preserved in Tibet

and illustrated in BST were produced in Pala India.

Regrettably the sheer unlimited reservoir of Tsha tsha clay miniature

images, among them some very early and finely moulded masterpieces,

has not yet found proper attention in Tibetan art history, although a few

excellent photographic documentations were published in China during

the last years.

And where is a single significant statue (or even stone sculpture!) made

by a Tibetan artist in the Central Regions between the first half of the

9th and of the 11th century? “Arms and animals” (Linrothe) of the Yar-

lung dynasty period were hardly a starting point for a grand indigenous

tradition of statue-makers, whose formative inspirations came no doubt

in the most essential way from India, Nepal, Kashmir, and Central Asia.

This is documented by all archaeological evidence.

In a brief remark Linrothe touches quite critically von Schroeder’s hy-

pothesis of a separate art tradition in the “Zhang Zhung Kingdom of

Western Tibet”, which next to the Yarlung dynasty group of early sculp-

214 Cf. Linrothe 2002, op.cit. This two-pages report was published when my own re-

view was already in press.

165

ture in central Tibet would be “the most promising and innovative con-

tributions” in BST: “It makes me uneasy to attribute pieces to an other-

wise unknown provenance based on what they are not”. A summary in-

deed of what I have tried to argue and to conclude in my review.

Stylistic characteristics and attributions in BST should be in general, so

Linrothe, more explicit. Some specific comparisons, here and there,

would have increased the information value of the individual text entries

to the images in this ten kilogram opus magnum, indeed a very heavy

“touchstone for Tibetan art for years”!

Since von Schroeder’s field work in the 1990s access to some prominent

sites like the Jokhang and Potala has become more difficult. A similar

investigation and photographic documentation for foreign researchers

appears to be now, at least at such places of major “public importance”

quite impossible. The same problem did exist for Tashi Lhünpo and Sa-

kya monastery (both not documented in BST) already before, whose

treasure rooms were so far not opened for scholarly interest or for exhi-

bitions inside or outside China.215 At Sakya, like Tashi Lhünpo under di-

rect control of the Lhasa and Beijing administration since it has been

“opened” to foreign visitors in 1985, admittance to statues and sanctua-

ries was limited and even reduced during the last years. And the ancient

extraordinary manuscript volumes, now moved to a newly constructed

traditional style library building, have become even more hidden

treasures than before.

Tashi Lhünpo monastery (bKra shis lhun po) was associated in a recent

Beijing conference paper by Ma Yunhua (Study on the Sources and

Styles of bKra shis li ma Statues collected in the Palace Museum), cura-

tor at the Palace Museum, with the inscription “tashi l ima” (or zhashi

lima) on a silk or paper label attached to many metal images in the For-

bidden City since then.216 Yet what has been misunderstood as a prove- 215 From both monasteries were given only “minor staff” to the German exhibition

“Tibet – Monasteries Open Their Treasure Rooms” in 2006/2007, nos. 28,46,57,84

(see review here), which one would not have missed at all.

216 Cf. Henss 2006 b, p.597-599.

166

nance mark, “from Tashi Lhünpo monastery”, must be translated simply

as “auspicious” or “blessed metal [image]”. Tibeto-Chinese statues in

the imperial collections are often recorded in Chinese as zhashi lima, a

“luck-bringing metal image”, for the Tibetan tashi or bkra shis li ma re-

spectively. When the Eighth Dalai Lama had sent gifts to the Qianlong

emperor, they were annotated at the court in Chinese as jin zhashi lima

wu liang shou fo yizun”, “a blessed metal statue of Amitayus was

handed over”.

And similarly does the Tibetan version of an 18th century four language

inscription added to the bottom of a remarkable 15th century gilt copper

Shakyamuni, which was presented by the Panchen Lama when meeting

the Qianlong emperor at the Qing court in 1780, refer to an “auspicious

metal image of Buddha Shakyamuni” (bKra shis li ma Shakya thub pa),

thus highlightening the very essence of that icon.217 Therefore “tashi

lima” has nothing to do with Tashi Lhünpo as a production center for

those statues, which were inscribed with a kind of good-luck inventory

mark upon their arrival at the court. Many of them are very well illus-

trated and documented in two recently published important reference

books on the statues brought from Tibet to China or produced there in

the Tibetan style, both compiled by an expert in the field, curator Wang

Jiapeng: Iconography and Styles. Tibetan Statues in the Palace Museum

(2 vols., Beijing 2002), and Buddhist Statues of Tibet. The Complete

Collection of Treasures in the Palace Museum, vol.60 (Beijing 2003). –

After BST was published a few more discoveries were made in the field

of related Buddhist sculptures in or from Tibet, of which a selection is

given here.

A 15 cm high copper statuette of a seated goddess in the National Mu-

seum of Bhutan at Paro (fig. 108, compare with fig. 93) corresponds

exactly to the style of the early “Yarlung group” in BST (p.736-769).218 217 Berger 2003, p.183f.; Henss 2006 b, p.598.

218 Bartholomew/Johnston 2008, p.146f., and Bartholomew 2008, fig.2: possibly a Hi-

malayan mountain goddess and protecting deity known in Bhutan as „Kongtsedemo“

(Kong btsun de mo; catalogue text).

167

This image datable to the 7th or 8th century is nearly identical with a

Sarasvati figure in Mindröl Ling monastery (sMin grol gling; BST, 178

A-C)219 and was probably brought to Bhutan already during the Tibetan

Imperial Period. It is a precious addition to the small corpus of earliest

Himalayan metal images as established in BST.

Encouraged by von Schroeder’s presentation of a Yarlung dynasty

group of earliest Tibetan sculptures (BST, pls.174-182) Amy Heller at-

tributed in her recently published Ashmolean Museum catalogue “Early

Himalayan Art” (Heller 2008, no.32) a small copper image of a seated

M a n j u s h r i to the late Tibetan Imperial Period. However, the cha-

racteristics, which according to Heller would recall the Licchavi style

wooden carvings in the Lhasa Jokhang and indicate a “ca. 9th century”

date. The specific forms of the crown blades and the jewelry can be,

however, better found in Nepalese and Nepalo-Tibetan statuary of the

10th and 11th century (see BST, pls.124A-C, 157D, 158C, 163A). The

specific design of the lotus petals does not exist in pre-11th century

Newari and Tibetan art and points out rather to sculptures and paintings

of the 11th and 12th century Chidar (phyi dar) period. The reference to

some Buddhist rock-carvings in Eastern Tibet appears to be of limited

value since those compositions reflect largely the stylistic patterns of

esoteric Buddhist art along the northern Silk Road during the 8th and 9th

century. And Newar-Tibetan metal casting must be seen primarily

within its own artistic traditions of material, style, and technique. The

Ashmolean Manjushri does hardly show any distinctive features, which

might be convincingly associated with the small corpus of earliest Ti-

betan and Nepalese copper and silver images, and thus cannot be much

better characterised a “Nepalese schools in Tibet, ca. 11th century”

(compare for general stylistics of contemporary Nepalese metal sculp-

tures BST, pls.142A, 158A, 160A, 166A).

Like contemporary sculptures from the Kashmir and Swat Valley area

these incunabula of Tibetan art were especially favoured a thousand

219 The Green Tara from Mindröl Ling, 193 C/D, is now in the Lhoka Prefecture

Museum at Tsethang, cf. Lhoka in Tibet. Beijing 2000, fig.14.

168

years later on by the Tenth Karmapa Chöying Dorje (Chos dbyings

rDo rje, 1604-74), one of the most extraordinary artists of Buddhist

Tibet, whose “drawing of the figures after the fashion of Kashmiri sta-

tues” (phyag bris kha che’i li) was already admired in an 18th century

Tibetan text.220 Von Schroeder’s identification of ten statues in brass,

copper, ivory and wood, all between ca. 15 and 30 cm in height (p.796-

819), as copies by this art-experienced hierarch after much earlier proto-

types has openend indeed a new chapter in the history of Tibetan art.

And several other metal images “in the early style” can now be attrib-

uted to Chöying Dorje or to his atelier such as a seated goddess, proba-

bly Sarasvati, in the Rietberg Museum Zürich, which has been dated to

the ca. 7th or to the 14th century, but must be in fact identified like BST

194 A/B and 194 C/D as a 17th century copy of an a thousand years

older prototype in iconography and style.221

Once an “oeuvre” of the image-maker-Karmapa has been convincingly

set up, several other figurines of Sarasvati, Tara, or Avalokiteshvara may

be attributed to Chöying Dorje’s manufactory or direct successors (if

there were any).222 – It seems that the “Kashmir Revival Style” (von

Schroeder) was largely or exclusively limited to the workshop of Chö-

ying Dorje and its immediate offsprings. How difficult it can be to

attribute a statue either to the early Kashmir period or as von Schroeder

– probably wrongly – believes (however without compelling arguments)

to a much later century, is illustrated by a Shakyamuni image in the Po-

tala Palace, BST 16 D/E.

220 Jackson 1996, p. 248. See also the basic observations of this author on Chöying

Dorje’s painting style, p. 247-258.

221 Cf. Uhlig 1995, no.88 (“13th/14th century”).

222 Compare for example three Tara figurines at Bodhicitta Gallery, The International

Asian Art Fair. New York 1997, Catalogue, p.29 (height: 12,5 cm); Tibetan Art at

Spink. London 1992, no.5 (height: 11,5 cm); Spink: Light of Compassion. Buddhist Art

from Nepal and Tibet. London 1997, no.24 (height: 17,5 cm). Another Green Tara of

this Imperial Period Revival style was the property of Dr. Robert Bigler in 1997

(height: 10,7 cm; unpublished).

169

Copying early images from Kashmir, Pala India, or from medieval Nepal

was a common practice in the court ateliers under the Qianlong em-

peror. A good number of such styl istic copies is preserved in the

Palace Museum (figs. 109, 110) and in the Yonghegong temple, Beijing

(figs. 111, 112).223 That similar early Kashmir style statues may not have

been brought only from the then “northwestern frontier” areas of

Gilgit, but also from Buddhist Khotan during the ca. 8th century is illus-

trated by a Shakyamuni statue in the Khotan museum (fig. 113).

The imitation of foreign “ideal” styles, especially Pala-Indian and Nepa-

lese, was of course practised in Tibet proper as well. A vast material can

be seen for example at Tashi Lhünpo monastery, including entire series

of Newar style bodhisattvas of a local 18th (?) century mass production

(fig. 114).

In 2005 I was able to see a hitherto “unknown” Kashmir style statue in

the gZim khang on the upper floor of the Lhasa Ramoche. The 87 cm

tall brass image of exceptional quality represents a crowned Shakyamuni,

and can be dated on stylistic grounds to the ca. 11th century, probably

once brought to Lhasa from Western Tibet (fig. 6). Another so far hid-

den treasure of later Kashmir style sculptural art from the western

Tibetan-Nepalese borderlands turned up in an American private collec-

tion in 2003: a smaller version in gilt brass, copper and silver of the

“Three Silver Brothers” (dngul sku mched gsum), a highly revered

monumental statue group at Kha char monastery (Nepali: Khojarnath)

located some 20 km east of present sTag la mkhar or better known in its

Nepali version as Taklakot, the ancient capital of Puhrang near the mod-

ern border to western Nepal (fig.115).

223 See for two other Kashmir style copies a 69 cm high Shakyamuni image in the Palace

Museum, Beijing, Wang Jiapeng 2003, no.233, and a Shakyamuni once in the Putuo

Zongchen temple at the imperial summer residence at Chengde (G.Béguin, Trésors de

Mongolie, XVIIe-XIXe siècles, Paris 1993, p.160). Cf also Henss 2004 (Tibet Journal),

plates 4-8.

170

Though largely restored and remade in later times the three bodhisattvas

Avalokiteshvara (center), Manjushri and Maitreya at Kha char can be

traced back to the foundation period of this once very popular pilgri-

mage site at around 996 and to the early 13th century. The replica, an un-

rivalled masterpiece of a western Tibetan-Nepalese artistic joint venture

dating to the first half of the 13th century recalls somehow the refined

and decorative late Kashmir style of the Alchi wall-paintings in Ladakh

towards the end of this grand art tradition in the western Himalayas.224

While Buddhist statuary in eastern Tibet has not been included in BST,

where too much priority is given to pre-15th century images anyway, the

sculpture of western Tibet is only represented by its Kashmir-dominated

first golden age of the 10th through 12th centuries, but not by a single

statue from the later periods such as from the second half of the 13th

and from the mid-15th to early 16th century (Tholing, Tsaparang;

figs. 116, 117).225

While I had questioned von Schroeder’s earlier attribution (1981) of

many 13th through 15th century non-Kashmir style statues to Western

Tibet already in the 1980s, a more detailed comment to that hypothesis

was published only some years ago (see Henss 2002). The myth, how-

ever, of the “Western Tibetan bronzes”, introduced at a time when

our experience with Tibetan art was indeed more limited than today, has

been longlasting and is, when it comes to the specific crowned tathagata

Buddha type of that period, still alive here and there. Even twenty years

later the author prefered to avoid a clear statement on this issue, al-

though the related images documented in BST are no longer labelled as

“Western Tibet”. Among those scholars upholding that myth was also

Chandra L.Reedy, whose book “Himalayan Bronzes”. Technology,

Style, and Choices” (1997) has been supposed to give further and final

224 See for a more detailed study Heller 2003. Heller’s dating of the Pritzker group to

circa 1220 is, however, largely based on a legendary historical tradition and not on a

thoroughful stylistic analysis, but still appears to meet the right period. Pal 2003, no.87,

and Henss in this publication (Part I), Monasteries Open Their Treasure Rooms, no.114.

225 See for a recent survey of western Tibetan sculpture Henss 2002.

171

directions and references to determine the regional provenance of some

340 statues by analysing their metal alloys, techniques of manufacture,

and casting centers(!). While, so Reedy, the data of “technological styles”

were meant, at least in general, to complement the “visual style” of an

image, the “Western Tibetan” material alone has questioned in my opin-

ion considerably the method and results of her “technological choices”.

Authentic images from the Central Regions, Ü and Tsang, are attributed

by Reedy – apparently adopting largely so-called stylistic claims by other

authors as “settled”(!) – to “Western Tibet” (W 134, 136, 140, 142-144,

146-156, etc) and statues of definetive Western Tibetan origin are la-

belled as “Central Tibet” (C159-162). One of the major shortcomings of

this problematic book is that dubious attributions to Western Tibet were

accepted and “confirmed” before the author was going to set up her

“technological choices”.

Establishing regional attributions for Tibetan art presupposes in many

more cases than actually feasible that local styles do exist. Art history

and the artist’s practice does not, however, always correspond to our

academic ambitions. Artisans and ateliers were not “immobilia”, but

moving around and working at various places for different patrons,

adapting and assimilating other regional and foreign aesthetic and tech-

nical patterns to a more - complex and non-regional – style than modern

scholarship is able to recognize and identify. And what is the sense to

label a Milarepa brass image without any Kashmirian features (“techni-

cal data clearly assign this piece to the Kashmir group”) as “Kashmir,

14th century or later”, when – purely speculative – a Kashmiri artist may

have “produced the piece in a workshop in Tibet from metal he brought

or imported himself” (! Reedy, p.174f., K.100)?

What Reedy (W 141) copied after Deborah Klimburg-Salter (The Silk

Road and the Diamond Path, Los Angeles 1982, pl.82) for a seated

S ha k y a m u n i i n t h e A s h m o l e a n M u s e u m , Oxford,

was introduced by Amy Heller (2008, no.52) into her new catalogue as:

“possibly Ladakh, 12th-13th century”. Although I am not able to suggest

another more precise regional attribution and it cannot be completely

172

ruled out that this image of a certain provincial quality was manufac-

tured somewhere in the western Himalayas, the arguments of all three

authors concerning this statue are not really conclusive and their com-

parisons don’t go beyond coincidental similarities. Not any other exis-

ting metal sculpture of this style is known from Western Tibet Guge and

“Indian Tibet” (Ladakh, Spiti, Lahoul). While all statuary in those re-

gions until the ca. mid-13th century is reflecting the stylistic formulas of

the grand Kashmirian tradition, the Oxford Shakyamuni represents what

has been called an international Central Tibetan style, which in the

course of the increasing missions of the new Buddhist schools from the

Central Regions to the Tibetan borderlands in the far East and West, be

it up to Guge or Ladakh since the early 13th century, be it as far as to the

Tangut Xixia Kingdom already before, provided a new normative artis-

tic language.

This did not work of course from one year to the other. And in view of

a quite common retardive provincial factor and of the ususally conside-

rable distance from the inspiring and formative heartland of these

“Indo-Tibetan” art traditions, then the Central Regions of Tibet, the

new painting styles in the foreign lands were often late and longerlasting

such as in the “New Temple” at Alchi (Lha khang so ma), or in similar

shrines and stupas at Lamayuru, Wanla, and Tabo, all in Ladakh and

Spiti, dating to the late 13th or to the 14th century. When seeing the

broad shovel-shaped head of the Ashmolean Buddha (recalling similar

facial proportions in southern Tibetan murals of the 14th century) and its

protruding ears one may even think of an individual later Tibetan ver-

sion after a 12th century Pala-Indian prototype such as Vajrâsana

Buddha in the Potala Palace (BST, p.307A) and at least five other related

brass statues. The latter image is certainly not as von Schroeder says of

“Tibetan origin and, bearing a Æâradâ inscription, therefore “cast in the

western Himalayas”(!), but made no doubt in India and brought to

Tibet, where once, probably not much before around 1300, also the tiny

Vairocana (Heller 2008, no.40) was copied at an unknown site– and

without any distinctive “Western Tibetan” characteristics (though

claimed by Heller) – and placed inside the 28 cm large Shakyamuni as

173

part of the original consecration ritual. – Thus nothing definetive of an

alleged Ladakhi origin of the enigmatic Oxford Buddha may remain for

the time being. Would its present attribution turn out to be another

“Western Tibetan” myth? –

A standing T a r a in the same Oxford collection described by Heller

(2008, no.50; brass, height: 19 cm) as “Western Tibet, ca. 1050-1150”,

represents in my opinion no more Western Tibet (Guge, Spiti, Ladakh),

and certainly not “Ladakh”, but the later Kashmir offsprings in the In-

dian Himalayan border areas of the middle Sutlej river valley in Hi-

machal Pradesh.

Except the greater artistic centers and traditions like Kashmir, Western

Tibet and Nepal (Kathmandu Valley) hardly any r e g i o n a l s t y l e s

over a larger period could be verified for Buddhist sculptures in Tibet

(even not in BST) except for example at Densa Thil and related places

like Drigung monastery in the 14th and 15th century. N o c a s t i n g

c e n t e r s could so far be identified for the many and popular

“tathâgata type” brass statues of the 13th through 15th century. Specific

sculptural styles such as of the monumental 11th century clay image cy-

cles at Yemar (gYe dmar) and at once neighbouring sites to the South of

Gyantse were also favoured at Shalu and a few decades later on at

Drathang (Grwa thang), but not for example at the same time in the

Lhasa Jokhang (rear Buddha Thub pa gangs chen mtsho rgyal and

twelve bodhisattvas in the main sanctum of the Jo bo Shakyamuni).

Not much different is the case for T i b e t a n p a i n t i n g . Only at

major cultural sites such as Gyantse existed a disctinctive local painting

style and school in the 15th century, which next to the grand murals also

characterised its “mobile art” like painted scrolls and giant appliqué

banners. A Sakya inspired and dominated tradition of lineage thangkas

and mandala paintings (painted scrolls and murals) between the later

13th and the early 17th century can be associated with the Tsang pro-

vince (Sakya, Shalu, Gyantse, Ngor), whereas the now lost mandalas (of

around or after ca. 1409) were painted in a different stylistic idiom than

the contemporary murals in Gyantse (1425) and the mandala thangka

174

from Ngor monastery (around or after 1429). An even more regional

“school” in southwestern Tsang can be recognized at Narthang,Jonang

Püntsoling (Kumbum stupa), Gyang (Lhatse district), and at Chung Ri-

woche during the 14th and 15th century. Other individual painting cycles

like the extraordinary Indian style wall-paintings at Püntsoling (Phun

tshogs gling, 1618/20) must be attributed to a special short-period

atelier rather than to a more persistant local art tradition. –

At places such as Gongkar (Gong dkar) monastery in Ü province one

may hesitate to characterise from a modern eye-view the pioneering mu-

rals by Khyentse (mKhyen brtse) and his workshop from sometime

after 1464 as a unique art style only practised here because of too many

losses of cultural relics, be it on a “natural way” by decay or later re-

painting in the course of the centuries, be it by the devastations during

the “Cultural Revolution” 1966-1976. – More relevant than an actual re-

gional attribution of a statue or of a painting was the selective practice

of specific stylistic traditions, which can be only partly – and originally –

related to distinctive geographic areas like the Karmagadri (Kar ma sgar

bris) painting style with eastern Tibet since the 16th century.

Recent field work and research in and on the ancient western Tibetan

kingdom of Zhang Zhung has contributed significantly to establish a

more precise profile on the way from legend to history. However it did

not reveal any imagery to support von Schroeder’s hypothesis of a sepa-

rate Buddhist art production in this cultural no-man’s-land during the 7th

and 8th century. While John Vincent Bellezza’s extensive explorations in

loco have covered the entire Chantang plains up to the Far West, a first

archaeological survey in search of Zhang Zhung was carried out by

Prof. Li Yongxian in 2004 at the site of ancient Khyunglung, the tradi-

tional “capital” of that enigmatic empire during the first millenium. The

only figural objects so far excavated in the whole area is a small archaic

bronze image of unidentifiable pre-Buddhist(?) iconography, which is

175

far away from the western Tibetan “Zhang Zhung group” as suggested

by von Schroeder.226

In view of the enormous volume of the author’s “Buddhist Sculptures

Unlimited” one would have appreciated more comparative text entries,

both in style and iconography, to the individual works of art with refe-

rences to other statues inside and outside Tibet. – Another and for the

precious stone inlays even more elaborate and better preserved tathâgata

set in the Pala Kurkihar style of the 11th century like BST 78-81 (Potala

Palace) is kept in the Palace Museum, Beijing (figs. 118, 119).227 Both

groups can be attributed to the same Indian workshop. The tradition to

produce metal statues with multicoloured inlaid stones goes back to Pala

ateliers of that period and was taken up by the Newar artists with an un-

surpassable aesthetic beauty and technical skill in the 12th century for the

next twohundred years. Early reports from the 7th century Chinese pil-

grim Xuanzang (between 629-645), who mentions “a figure of Buddha

made of brass, ornamented with rare jewels”228, cannot be illustrated by

surviving images.

Next to Nepal and Tibet the impact of Indian Pala statuary on

neighbouring areas was most effective in the art of Pagan during the late

11th until the 13th century. Like a few preserved paintings and some

more statues brought from India to Tibet during the 11th and 12th cen-

tury the Pala style sculptuers and paintings of Pagan may help to recon-

struct what has been lost at the source, in Bodhgaya or Nalanda and be-

226 J. V. Bellezza, Zhang Zhung. Foundations of Civilization in Tibet. A Historical and

Ethnoarchaeological Study of the Monuments, Rock Art and Oral Tradition of the An-

cient Tibetan Upland. Vienna 2008; and Li Yongxian, The Archaeological Findings in

Khyung lung dngal mKhar. Paper given at the Second International Conference on

Tibetan Archaeology and Art, Beijing 2004; cf. Henss 2006 (Conference Report), p. 584-

586, and Henss 2006. Huo Wei/Li Yongxian, New Archaeological Finds in Xiang quanhe

River Valley. China’s Tibet, no.4, 2005, p.43.

227 Wang Jiapeng 2002, nos. 6,9,11,13,24, and Wang Jiapeng 2003, nos. 68-72, and no.65

(Vairocana), which apparently belongs to the Potala set.

228 S. Beal, Si Yu Ki. Buddhist Records of the Western World (London 1884). Delhi 1981,

p.123.

176

yond. An extraordinary hoard of about 200 superb miniature carvings

produced by local artists at Pagan (many inscribed in Burmese) in a pure

Indian Pala style of the late 11th or 12th century became known only in

the last years.229 These finely carved votif tablets were made of a yellow-

beige pyrophyllite stone known in Burmese as andagû and were thus la-

belled as “Andagû rel iefs” (fig. 120).

A very homogenous group in iconographiy, style and material now kept

in several private Burmese collections, they were apparently all found in

one cachette, probably once manufactured as a royal commission and

donation. Many of them are depicting the major events of the Buddha’s

life, several of rare iconographiy such as the emaciated Buddha, the

Buddha in the “European” sitting posture or standing in a Mahâbodhi

temple-like shrine, or a Walking Buddha. Though not part of “Buddhist

Sculptures in Tibet” the Andagû tablets make an exceptional addition to

the corpus of Pala style miniature carvings – and a new chapter in the

Buddhist art history of South Asia and beyond.

Coming back once again to Densa Thil monastery230 some recent

discoveries and studies have contributed to bring together what has

been dispersed or lost during the “Cultural Revolution” at this most sig-

nificant monastic site. Among the individual statues two guardians, a

Vaiæravana now in the Lhasa Ramoche, and a Virû-pâkía brought to

Beijing and now on display in the Capital Museum, can be identified

with photos taken by Francesco Mele during the Tucci expedition in

1948 (figs. 77, 78a)

For a reconstruction and the iconography of the tashigomang (bKra shis

sgo mang) memorial stupa type at Densa Thil (as it was before 1966)

229 See Bautze-Picron 2006. I am grateful to Claudine Bautze-Picron, who is prepar-ing a major publication of the Andagu tablets, to have shown me many more photo-graphs of these unique treasures than so far published.

230 See our observations on the Densa Thil Statuary here p.80 ff. in the review on “Ti-

bet – Monasteries Open Their Treasure Rooms”. Of great help have been here the re-

cent studies by Olaf Czaja (cf. Czaja 2006, and 2007/2008).

177

based on numerous surviving fragments, text sources and on the few

Mele photographs we refer here to the second chapter in this book (Ti-

bet. Monasteries Open Their Treasure Rooms). A comprehensive com-

pilation, identification and reconstruction of all existing fragments from

Densa Thil scattered over various public and private collections would

be a major desideratum in order to document and to preserve whatever

is left from one of the most important sites of Tibet’s cultural heritage.

Like Ganden monastery is Densa Thil synonymous for the iconoclasm

of the 1960s in Tibet. Thousands of images were destroyed, desecrated

or deprived of their blessing energy, their gold ornaments removed and

melted down. From 600 tons of sacred icons transported for their metal

value to factories in Beijing, Tianjin or Shanghai less than ten percent or

13.537 statues and fragments had been recovered in 1973 to be stored

for another ten years in the Forbidden City or in the Confucius temple

and sent back to Lhasa in 1983. Several thousand cultural relics are left

in the new Beijing Capital Museum, with a well-presented selection on

display from Densa Thil and beyond, yet many still packed up as they

had come some fourty years ago: hidden treasures and visual documents

of Tibet’s golden history and recent past, for sheer delight to see and

liberation by viewing, for future exploration and further insight on an-

cient treasures.

178

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187

List of Illustrations

01 Lhasa, Tibet Museum (opened in 1999). - Photo: Michael Henss, 1999.

02 Dragpa Gyaltsen (1147-1216). Gilt copper repoussé; height: 100 cm. Newari artist in

Tibet, first half of 16th century. Mindröl Ling monastery. Catalogue (Tibet Monasteries

Open Their Treasure Rooms, 2006), no.9. Photo: exhibition.

03 Mahasiddha Damarupa. Gilt copper repoussé; height: 105 cm. Newari artist in Tibet,

first half of 16th century. Mindröl Ling monastery. Catalogue no.4. - Photo: Michael

Henss, 1990.

04 Buddha Shakyamuni. Brass; height: 94 cm. Kashmir, ca.625/635, with Tibetan

inscription dating between 998 and 1016. Lhasa, Potala Palace. - Catalogue no.13. -

Photo: after exhibition catalogue: Tibet. Monasteries Open Their Treasure Rooms,

2006; henceforth “exhibition catalogue”), p.165.

05 Buddha Shakyamuni, Brass(?); height: 61 cm. Kashmir style in western Tibet, ca.11th

century. Lhasa, Tibet Museum. Catalogue no.14. - Photo: exhibition

06 Crowned Shakyamuni. Brass; height: 87 cm. Kashmir style in western Tibet, ca.11th

century. Lhasa, Ramoche temple. - Photo: Michael Henss, 2005.

07 Bodhisattva Maitreya. Brass with inlaid copper, silver and precious stones; height: 180

cm (without base 130 cm). Indian Pala-Sena style, 12th century. Lhasa, Potala Palace.

Catalogue no.32. - Photo: exhibition

08 Detail of plate 7. - Photo: after exhibition catalogue p.251.

09 Bodhisattva Maitreya (same as plate 7). Lhasa, Potala Palace, Li ma lha khang. - Photo:

Michael Henss, 1991.

10 Bodhisattva Maitreya. Gilt copper; height: 136 cm (statue). Work of an Indian artist in

Tibet, 12th century. Nyethang monastery. - Photo: Michael Henss, 1994

11 Torso of a female statue from Nalanda. Stone; height: 105 cm. Indian Pala style,

11th/12th century. Delhi, National Museum, inv. no.49153. - Photo: after Goddess.

Divine Energy, ed.by J.Menzies. Sidney 2006, plate 1.

12 King Songtsen Gampo. Gilt copper; height: 46,5 cm. Central Tibet, 14th century.

Lhasa, Potala Palace. Catalogue no.81. - Photo: after exhibition catalogue p.431.

13 King Songtsen Gampo and his wives. Painted clay, 14th century. Lhasa, Tsuglagkhang

(no more extant). Photo: after Sis/Vanis 1958, pl.133.

14 Tibetan dharma-râja (religious king). Gilt copper; height: 52,7 cm. Central Tibet, 14th

century. Lhasa, Potala Palace. Catalogue no.80. - Photo: after exhibition catalogue p.428.

15 Yidam Kalacakra. Gilt copper inlaid with precious stones; height: 60 cm. Newari artist

inTibet, ca. mid-14th century. Shalu monastery. Catalogue no.54. - Photo: Michael

Henss, 1999.

16 The Five Tathâgatas. Brass with inlaid turquoise stones and corals; height: ca.36-43 cm.

Tibet, ca.1300. Shalu monastery. Catalogue no.19a-e. - Photo: Michael Henss, 1989.

188

17 The crowned Diamond Seat Buddha with scenes from his life. Scroll painting; 70x59

cm. Newari artist in Tibet, 14th century. Lhasa, Tibet Museum. Catalogue no.16. -

Photo: exhibition.

18 Model of the Mahâbodhi temple at Bodhgaya. Sandalwood; height: 49 cm. India, 11th

century. Lhasa, Potala Palace. Catalogue no.22. - Photo: exhibition.

19 Aíåasahâhasrikâ Prajñâpâramitâ Sanskrit palm-leaf manuscript, with illuminations on

four (of total 139) leaves and painted wooden covers; 58x7 cm. India, probably

Nalanda monastery, late 11th century. Tsethang, Yarlung Museum. Catalogue no.26. -

Photo: after exhibition catalogue p.221.

20 Detail of the manuscript cover fig.19. - Photo: after exhibition catalogue, p.224.

21 Aíåasahâhasrikâ Prajñâpâramitâ palm-leaf manuscript; ca.56x6 cm. India, Nalanda

monastery, ca.1073. New York, The Asia Society. - Photo: after Huntington 1990, pl.58b

22 Illuminated palm-leaf manuscript. India, 11th/12th century. Sakya monastery. Photo:

after Xue Yu Ming Cha sa Jia Si 2006, p.138.

23 Eight Thousand Verses Prajñâpâramitâ. Illuminated palm-leaf manuscript; size: 56x6

cm. India, late 11th or early 12th century. Lhasa, Tibet Museum. - Photo: after Precious

Deposits 2000, I, no.73.

24 Detail of fig. 23.

25 Illuminated palm-leaf manuscript; size: 47x6,8 cm. India, first half of 12th century.

Lhasa, Tibet Museum. Photo: after Jinse Baozang 2001, p.220, 224, 226.

26 Detail of fig. 25

27 Detail of fig. 25

28 Bodhisattva Manjushri, Scroll painting from ‘On Ke ru Lha khang; 77,5x23,5 cm.

Tibet, 11th century. Tsethang, Yarlung Museum. Catalogue no.31. - Photo: after exhibi-

tion catalogue p.244.

29 Acala. Slit tapestry (kesi); 160x76 m, 87x57 cm without brocade borders. China, around

1300 (after an earlier painted model). Lhasa, Tibet Museum. Catalogue no.49. - Photo:

after exhibition catalogue p. 309.

30 Avalokiteshvara thangka. Silk embroidery with pearls; 60x45,5 cm. Ca. mid-14th

century. Lhasa, Tibet Museum. - Photo: after Precious Deposits 2000, III, no.22

31 Vajrabhairava. Silk brocade thangka; size unknown. China, Yongle period (1403-1424),

with reign mark. Lhasa, Potala Palace. - Photo: after The Potala. Holy Palace in the

Snow Land, Beijing 1996, p.151.

32 Guhyasamâja-Akíobhyavajra. Silk embroidery; 75x61 cm (image). China, Yongle

period between 1416-1419. Lhasa, Potala Palace. Catalogue no.55. - Photo: exhibition.

33 Vajrabhairava. Embroidered silk brocade thangka; 324x200 cm. China, Yongle reign

mark and period (1403-1424). Lhasa, Tsuglagkhang. - Photo: Michael Henss, 1994.

34 Cakrasamvara. Embroidered silk brocade thangka; 340x202 cm. China, Yongle reign

mark and period (1403-1424). Lhasa, Tsuglagkhang. - Photo: Michael Henss, 1994.

189

35 Raktayamâri. Embroidered silk brocade thangka; 335x213 cm. China, Yongle reign

mark and period (1403-1424). Private collection. Detail of the upper register (Ami-

tâbha). - Photo: after Christie’s New York, 2.6.1994, no.225.

36 Vajradhara. Gilt copper; height: 16,5 cm. China, dated by inscription to 1436. Beijing,

Capital Museum. Photo: after Selected Works on Ancient Buddhist Statues. Beijing

2005, fig. 58.

37 Pensive Avalokiteshvara in mahârâjalilâ posture. Gilt copper; height: 21,5 cm. China,

Yongle period (1403-1424), with reign mark. Lhasa, Potala Palace. Catalogue no.37. -

Photo: after exhibition catalogue p. 268.

38 Pensive Avalokiteshvara in mahârâjalilâ posture. Gilt copper; height: 21,5 cm. China,

Yongle period (1403-1424), with reign mark. Beijing, National Museum of China. -

Photo: after Zhongguo zangchuan fojiao jintong zaoxiang yishu (The Art of Tibetan

Buddhist Gilt Metal Statues in China), Beijing 2001, vol.II, no.150.

39 Pensive Avalokiteshvara in mahârâjalilâ posture. Gilt copper; height: 21,5 cm. China,

Yongle period (1403-1424), with reign mark. Tuyet Nguyet Collection, Hongkong. -

Photo: after Arts of Asia, September/October 1994, cover illustration.

40 Pensive Avalokiteshvara in mahârâjalilâ posture. Gilt copper; height: 30,2 cm. Tibeto-

Chinese style, with Yongle reign mark (1403-1424), authentic? - Photo: after Nagel

auction, Stuttgart, 21.5.2004, no.747 (catalogue).

41 Pensive Avalokiteshvara (Guanyin) in mahârâjalilâ posture. Limestone; height: ca.100

cm. China 10th/11th century. Paris, Musée Guimet. Photo: after O.Sirén, Chinese

Sculpture from the Fifth to the Fourteenth Century. London 1925 (reprint Bangkok

1998), vol. II, plate 568.

42 Buddha Shakyamuni. Gilt copper; height: 19,5 cm. China, Yongle reign mark and

period (1403-1424). - Photo: after Christie’s New York, 21.3.2001, no.85.

43 Bhaiíajyaguru Buddha. Gilt copper; height: 18,5 cm. China, Yongle reign mark and

period (1403-1424). - Photo: after Council auction (catalogue), Beijing, 3.12.2007,

no. 1752.

44 Bhaiíajyaguru Buddha. Gilt copper; height: 18,5 cm. China, Yongle reign mark and

period (1403-1424), which according to the catalogue text is (unusually) incised on the

lower(!) border of the lotus pedestal. - Photo: after Council auction (catalogue), Beijing,

3.12.2007, no.1793.

45 Vajradhara Buddha. Gilt copper; height: 30 cm. Nepalo-Tibetan style, with Tibeto-

Chinese elements, with Yongle reign mark (1403-1424), incised sometime later on. -

Photo: after Christie’s Hongkong, 1.5.2000, no.753.

46 Vajradhara Buddha. Lacquered and gilt copper; height: 37,5 cm. Nepalese style in

China, dated according to the catalogue text by inscription at the bottom of the image

to the fifth year of the Hongwu period (1372). - Photo: after Nagel auction (catalogue),

Stuttgart, 12.11.2007, no.784.

190

47 Buddha Shakyamuni. Gilt copper; height: 16 cm. Nepalo-Tibetan style, with Xuande

reign mark (1425-1435) incised sometime later on, dated 1426. Beijing, Palace Mu-

seum. - Photo: after Iconography and Styles. 2002. vol.I, no.70, p.192.

48 Shakyamuni. Gilt copper; height: 18,5 cm. Nepalo-Tibetan style. With later Xuande

reign (1425-1435) mark. Art trade, Zürich. - Photo: Michael Henss, 2002.

49 Avalokiteshvara Padmapani. Gilt copper; height: 29 cm. China, Zhengtong reign period

(1436-1449)? With a six-character reign mark Da Ming Yong le nian zhi incised later on

at the lower rim of the lotus base (“Produced in the Yongle era of the great Ming”).-

Photo: after Iconography and Styles 2002, II, no.99.

50 Avalokiteshvara. Gilt copper; height: 20,5 cm. China, dated by inscription (on the

bottom plate) to 1436. Zürich, Rietberg Museum. - Photo: after catalogue Galerie

Koller, Zürich, 8.11.1980, no.71, pl.14.

51 Bhaiíajyaguru Buddha. Gilt metal; height: 85 cm. China, dated by inscription to 1450.

Beijing, Capital Museum. - Photo: after Han Yong/Huang Chunhe 2001, pl.115.

52 Bhaiíajyaguru Buddha. Lacquered and gilt metal; height: 37 cm. China, dated by

inscription to the ninth year of the Zhenghua reign (1473). - Photo: after Hanhai auc-

tion, Beijing, 22.11.2004, no.2507.

53 Buddha Shakyamuni in dhyânamudrâ. Gilt copper; height: 37 cm. China, dated by

inscription to the third year of the Zhenghua reign (1467). - Photo: after Christie’s

London, 7.11.2006, no.126.

54 Akíobhya. Gilt copper; height: 25,5 cm. China, Zhengtong reign period (1436-1449)?

Taipei, Chang Foundation. - Photo: after Chang Foundation 1993, no.3.

55 Crowned Buddha in sambhogakâya aspect. Gilt copper; height: 47 cm. China, Zheng-

tong (1436-1449) or Jingtai reign (1450-1457). Newark/USA, The Newark Museum.

Photo: after Buddha. Radiant Awakening, ed.by J.Menzies. Sidney 2001, no.47.

56 Avalokiteshvara. Copper; height: 31 cm. China, Zhenghua period (1465-1487), with

Zhenghua six-character reign mark. Beijing, Poly Auction, 1.12.2007, no.979. - Photo:

after Poly Auction catalogue.

57 Amoghasiddhi. “Bronze” with silver inlays and traces of original gilding at the lotus

base; height: 67 cm. China, probably Zhenghua period (1465-1487). Galerie Jacques

Barrère, Paris (2007). Photo: after exhibition advertisment J.Barrère.

58 Bhaiíajyaguru Buddha. Brass with traces of original painting (face); height: 33 cm.

China, Zhenghua period (?1465-1487). Galerie Koller, Zürich, 22.9.2007, no.104. -

Photo: after catalogue Galerie Koller.

59 Vajrabhairava lotus mandala. Gilt copper; height: 58 cm (when open, 81,5 cm when

closed). China, with Yongle reign (1403-1424) mark. Lhasa, Tibet Museum (formerly)

Potala Palace. Catalogue no.75. - Photo: after exhibition catalogue, p.405.

60 Detail of fig. 59. - Photo: after exhibition catalogue, p.406.

191

61 Vajrabhairava, detail. Gilt copper; total height of the image: 20 cm. China, with Yongle

reign (1403-1424) mark. Ex-Speelman collection, London. Photo: after Sotheby’s Vi-

sions of Enlightenment 2006, no.812, p.90.

62 Hevajra lotus mandala. Gilt copper; height: 82 cm. China, with Yongle reign (1403-

1424) mark. Lhasa, Potala Palace. - Photo: after Potala Palace, ed.by Shen Baichang.

Beijing 1988, plate 69.

63 Two lotus mandalas. Gilt copper; height: 82 cm. China, Yongle reign period (and mark?

1403-1424). Lhasa, Potala Palace, Li ma lha khang. - Photo: Michael Henss, 1992.

64 Herukavajra(?) lotus mandala (or Sixteen-armed Nine-deity Heruka mandala). Gilt

copper; size unknown. China, probably with Yongle reign mark (1403-1424). Formerly

Ngor monastery, southern Tibet (no more extant). See also Tucci 1949, p.206, with de-

tail of the closed lotus bud. - Photo: Guiseppe Tucci expedition 1939 (Tucci photo-

graphic archives, Museo Nazionale d’Arte Orientale, Rome, inv.no.6105/24.

65 Hevajra lotus mandala. Brass; height: 30,8 cm. Eastern India, 11th or 12th century.

Photo: after Sotheby’s New York, 2.6.1992, no.21

66 Three Kadampa stupas. Brass; height: between ca.100-200 cm. Central Tibet, ca. first

half of 14th century. Mindröl Ling monastery. Compare catalogue no.24. - Photo:

Michael Henss, 1989.

67 Kadampa stupa, crown with engravings of a Buddha and the bodhisattvas Manjushri

and Padmapani. Brass; total height of the stupa ca.100 cm. Tibet, 14th century. Mindröl

Ling monastery. Photo: Michael Henss, 1991.

68 Four-armed goddess. Gilt copper; height: 29 cm. Densa Thil, first half of 15th century.

Lhasa, Tibet Museum. - Photo: after exhibition catalogue, p.176.

69 Eight-armed goddess. Gilt copper; height: 32 cm. Densa Thil, first half of 15th century.

Private collection. - Photo: after Oriental Art, 3/1975, p.215.

70 Four-armed goddess. Gilt copper: height: 28,5 cm. Densa Thil, second half of 14th

century. Lhasa, Potala Palace. - Photo: after Precious Deposits, III, no.24.

71 Mahâpratisarâ. Gilt copper; height: 30 cm. Densa Thil, second half of 14th century.

Private collection. - Photo: after Spink, The Mirror of Mind. London 1995, no.17.

72 Prajñâpâramitâ. Gilt copper; height: 35 cm. Densa Thil, around 1400. Private collec-

tion. - Photo: after Christie’s New York, 19.9.2001, no.115,

73 Bodhisattva. Gilt copper; height; 26 cm. Densa Thil, around 1400. Private Collection.

Photo; after Orientations, March 1993 (advertisment Eleanor Abraham).

74 Mañjuvajra. Gilt copper; height: ca.30 cm. From Densa Thil, around 1400. Private

Collection, Italy. - Photo: Michael Henss

75 Amoghasiddhi. Gilt copper; height: 31,5 cm. Densa Thil style, around 1400. Zürich,

Rietberg Museum. - Photo: after Uhlig 1995, no.31

76 Vairocana. Gilt copper; height: 29,5 cm. Probably from Densa Thil, around 1400. Yury

Khokhlov Collection, Moscow. - Photo: after Christie’s, Paris 13.6.2007

192

77 Lokapâla Virûpâkía. Gilt copper; height: ca.65 cm. From Densa Thil, first half of 15th

century. Beijing, Capital Museum. - Photo: www.himalayanart.org.59835.

78a Lokapâla Vaiæravana. Gilt copper; height: ca.65 cm. From DensaThil, first half of 15th

century (see Mele photo, fig.78b). Lhasa, Ramoche temple, former gZim chung of the

Dalai Lama. - Photo: Michael Henss, 2005.

78b Densa Thil monastery. Lower section of an unidentifiable tashigomang stupa with four

lokapâlas in front of the lotus base. Ca. early 15th century. The second figure from left

is now in the Capital Museum, Beijing, and the second from right in the Ramoche at

Lhasa. - Photo: F.Mele 1939 (Völkerkundemuseum der Universität Zürich).

79 Eleven-headed Avalokiteshvara. Gilt copper with turqoise inlays; height: 78 cm. Tibet,

18th century. Lhasa, Norbulingka Palace. Catalogue no.34. - Photo: exhibition

80 Medical thangka. Original set, between 1687-1703. Lhasa, Mentsikhang (sMan rtsis

khang, Tibetan Hospital). - Photo: Michael Henss, 1981)

81 Medical thangka. Original set, between 1687-1703. Lhasa, Mentsikhang (sMan rtsis

khang). Photo: Michael Henss, 1981)

82a Khaåvâïga. Gilt iron and silverwork; total height: 77,3 cm. China, early 15th century

(probably Yongle reign period, 1403-1424). Lhasa, Potala Palace. Catalogue no.117. -

Photo: after exhibition catalogue, p.520.

82b Upper part of the Khaåvâïga fig.82. - Photo: after exhibition catalogue, p.506.

83 A pair of ritual fire ladles. Metal with gold and silver inlays; height: 38,5 cm. With

Yongle reign mark. - Photo: after Hanhai Autumn Auction, Beijing, 18.12.2006, p.56-63.

84 Silver cup with gilding. Height and diameter: 10,2 cm. Tibet, 7th//8th century. Cleve-

land Museum of Art, 1988.68. - Photo: Cleveland Museum of Art.

85 Silver bowl with gilding. Diameter: 15,2 cm. Tibet, 7th/8th century. - Photo: after

Christie’s New York, 19.9.2001, no.130.

86 Mahâkâla (Gur gyi mGon po). Polychromed limestone; height: 47 cm. Southern Tibet

(Sakya?), dated by inscription to 1292 (or 1293?). Paris, Musée Guimet, Donation Lio-

nel Fournier. Photo: after Béguin 1990, p.55.

87 Six-armed Mahâkâla. Fine-grained blackish stone; height: 19,7 cm. Southern Tibet

(Sakya?), second half of 13th century. - Photo: after Rochell 2003, no.7.

88 Sanskrit manuscript with tantric Buddhist texts in Æâradâ script on birch bark. Size:

15,6x15,3 cm. Dated 1059. Lhasa, Tibet Museum. - Photo: after Precious Deposits

2000, I, no.74.

89 Iconometric drawing of a thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara. Thangka, 59,5x43,5 cm.

Tibet, 20th century. Lhasa, Tibet Museum. - Photo: after Tibet Museum 2001, p.58.

90 Removed.

91 Avalokiteshvara(?) seated on a cow. Silver alloy with later cold-gilding; height: 20 cm.

Tibet, 7th/8th century. Lhasa, Potala Palace. - Photo:after BST, 180 D.

193

92 Sarasvati. Silver alloy with later cold gilding; height: 17,8 cm. Tibet, 7th/8th century.

Lhasa, Potala Palace. Photo: after BST, 179 D

93 Sarasvati. Copper with later cold gilding; height: 13 cm. Tibet, 7th/8th century. Mindröl

Ling monastery (sMin grol gling). - Photo: after BST, 178 A-C

94 Buddha Shakyamuni. Copper with ancient gilding and later cold gilded face; height: 42

cm. Tibet, ca.9th century? Lhasa, Potala Palace. - Photo: after BST, 182 C.

95 “Wine Jar of King Songtsen Gampo”. Silver; height: 78 cm. Tibet, ca.8th century.

Lhasa, Jokhang. Photo: after BST, 190 A

96 Jowo Shakyamuni. Lhasa, Jokhang. Copper with cold gilding; height: ca.170 cm (with

crown). Probably Nepalese work in Tibet of the 11th through 13th century, considerably

reworked in later centuries. Upper section of the copper prabha-mandala (nimbus) at-

tributed to Aniko, 1262. Lhasa, Jokhang. Photo: Michael Henss, 1999.

97 Bracket section of the upper canopy architecture surmounting the Jowo Shakyamuni in

the Lhasa Jokhang (backside), attributed to Aniko (1262). Below is the first part of the

inscription from 1673. Photo: Michael Henss, 1981.

98 Green Tara. Copper with metal and turquoise stone inlays; height: 23 cm. Pala-

Nepalese style (Aniko style?) in Tibet or Dadu (Beijing), second half of 13th century.

Lhasa, Potala Palace. - Photo: After Xizang Budala Gong 1996, pl.298

99 Avalokiteshvara Padmapani. Copper with inlays; height: 15,3 cm. Nepalo-Tibetan style,

second half of 13th century. Lhasa, Tibet Museum. - Photo: after Precious Deposits

2000, III, no.23

100 Avalokiteshvara Padmapani. Copper with silver and gold inlays; height: 17 cm. Newari

artist in Tibet (Aniko style?), ca.1261/62 (?). The Newark Museum, Newark/USA,

no.79442. - Photo: The Newark Museum

101 Yemar (gYe dmar lha khang), Amitayus sanctuary (Tshe dpag med lha khang):

bodhisattvas and guardian, 2nd quarter of 11th century. - Photo: Stone Routes, 1985

102 Head of a bodhisattva from Yemar. Clay with traces of old painting; height: ca.40 cm.

Lhasa, Tibet Museum. Photo: Michael Henss, 2001

103 Vairocana. Brass(?); height: 41 cm. Southern Tibet, “Yemar style”, 11th century.

Chicago, private collection. Photo: Ian Alsop, 2000.

104 Avalokiteshvara Padmapani. Brass(?); height: 27,3cm. “Zhangzhung Kingdom of

Western Tibet, ca. 8th century” (BST). Lhasa, Potala Palace. - Photo: after BST, 187 C

105 Sarasvati(?). Copper with later cold gilding; height: 22 cm. “Zhangzhung Kingdom of

Western Tibet, ca. 8th century” (BST). Lhasa, Potala Palace. - Photo: after BST, 188 C

106 Amitâbha. Brass; height: 45 cm. Tibet, Central Regions (dbUs gTsang), ca. late 13th

century. Zürich, private collection (“tathagata type”). - Photo: Michael Henss

107 King Songtsen Gampo. Painted clay; height: 15 cm. Ca.17th century or later. Lhasa,

present location unknown. Compare with the famous statue in the Potala Palace

(Dharma King Meditation Cave). - Photo: after Zhongguo Zangchuan Fojiao Diasu

Quanji, vol.1, Beijing 2001, plate 92.

194

108 Goddess. Copper alloy with cold gilded face; height: 15,5 cm. Tibet, 7th/8th century.

Paro, National Museum of Bhutan. - Photo: after Bartholomew/Johnston 2008, p.146.

109 Group of three Shakyamuni Buddhas and of bodhisattva Maitreya (left) and Avalo-

kiteshvara (right). Brass with later cold gilding; height: 26,5 cm. Kashmir, ca.8th/9th

century. Beijing, Palace Museum. Photo: after Iconographiy and Styles 2002, vol.I,

no.79, p.208 (see also Wang Jiapeng 2003, no.22).

110 Group of three Shakyamuni Buddhas and of bodhisattva Maitreya (left) and Avalo-

kiteshvara (right). Copper with cold gilding; height: 27 cm. China, Qianlong period,

third quarter of 18th century. Copy of an 8th/9th century Kashmir style work (fig.109).

Beijing, Palace Museum. - Photo: after Iconographiy and Styles 2002, vol.I, no.79,

p.210.

111 Buddha Shakyamuni. Brass with later gilding; height: 62 cm (image). Kashmir, 7th/8th

century (image and figural base). Tibetan inscription on the lower rim of the figural

base, wooden lower base and prabhâ (with inscriptions on the back in Mandschu,

Mongolian, Tibetan and Chinese) of 18th century. Presented in 1745 by Pho lha nas,

“King of Tibet”, and the Seventh Dalai Lama to the Yonghegong temple. Beijing,

Yonghegong temple. - Photo: after Priceless Treasures 1999, no.26.

112 Buddha Shakyamuni. Copper with gilding; height: 62 cm. Copy made in 1936 (inscrip-

tion on the backside) of a 7th/8th century Kashmir style image (fig.111). With a twelve

character inscription: Zhang jiao zhuan lun jie yin shi jia mu ni fo xiang, “the image of

Buddha Shakyamuni, master of Buddhism, in the gesture of teaching mudra. Beijing,

Yonghegong temple. For reference see also Yonghegong Zangchuan Fojiao Zaoxiang

Yishu, Beijing 2006, p.122. - Photo; after Palace of Harmony. Beijing 1995, p.63

113 Buddha Shakyamuni. Brass; height: 42 cm. Kashmir or Gilgit area, 7th or early 8th

century. With Sanskrit inscription in Æâradâ script: deyadharmmo yaõ spalapati (íâlakâ)

bharya ra + oyamavati sardha mâtâ padmamukhâ puttra ++ muçusiõgha punyasiõgha

khukhathâla puttra ++ mudusiõgha punyasiõgha khukhathâla paramakalyânamihara

endrattrâta yad puôyaõ tad bhavatu sarvasatvânâm vimuktattrâta.

“This is the religious donation of the wife of the army commander Íâlakâ (?), Ra +

oyâmâvati together with the mother Padmamukhâ, her sons Muçusiõgha and Puô-

yasiõgha Khukhathâla and of the best beneficial friend Endratrâta. The religious merit

may be with all sentient beings. Vimuktatrâta” (reading and translation into German by

Oskar von Hinüber). - Khotan, Museum (Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China). Exca-

vated at Damagou (Qira). - Photo: after The Ancient Art in Xinjiang, China. Beijing

1994, fig.117.

114 Image gallery (li ma lha khang) at Tashi Lhünpo monastery. South wing of the Great

Courtyard, second floor. Nepal style copies can be recognized on three registers, sur-

rounding authentic early images from Nepal and Kashmir. - Photo: Michael Henss, 1982.

115 The “Three Silver Brothers”: Manjushri – Avalokiteshvara – Vajrapani (from left to

right). Brass with copper, silver and gilding; height: 71,4 cm. Western Tibet, Puhrang

195

area, early 13th century. Pritzker Collection, Chicago. - Photo: after Newsletter illustra-

tion of the Chicago Art Institute (2003).

116 Buddha Shakyamuni. Painted clay; height: 44 cm. Western Tibet (Gu ge), second half

of 15th century. Photo: after Rossi and Rossi; Beyond Lhasa. Sculpture and Painting

from East and West Tibet. London 2002, no.7.

117 Sarvavid Vairocana. Painted clay; height: approximately life-size. Tsaparang (Gu ge),

White Temple (Lha khang dkar po), early 16th century. - Photo: Sun Zhijiang, 1976.

118 Crowned Akshobhya. Brass with inlaid semi-precious stones; height: 19 cm. India,

11th/12th century. Beijing, Palace Museum. - Photo: after Zhongguo Zangchuan Fojiao

Diasu Quanji, vol.2, Beijing 2001, plate 28.

119 Vairocana. Brass; height: ca. 20 cm. India, 11th/12th century. Beijing, Palace Museum. -

Photo: after Zhongguo Zangchuan Fojiao Diasu Quanji, vol.2, Beijing 2001, plate 26.

120 Buddha’s Enlightenment and scenes of his life. Pyrophyllite stone (Burmese: andagu);

height: 20,2 cm. Pagan, late 11th or 12th century. Private collection, Myanmar. - Photo:

Claudine Bautze-Picron.

121 Tara (Khadiravaôi-Acacia Forest Tara, or Aíåamahâbhaya-Eight Fears Tara, or Green

Tara), known as “Ford-Tara”. Painted cloth, 122x80 cm. Central Tibet, second half of

12th century. John and Berthe Ford Collection, currently on loan in the Walters Art

Gallery, Baltimore. Photo: after Kossak/Casey Singer 1998, no.3.

122 Amitayus. Metal alloy, with traces of old cold gilding (face); height: 60 cm. Pala style,

12th century. Probably manufactured by an Indian artist in Tibet. Private collection.

Photo: courtesy of the owner.

123 Green Tara. Copper with gold and silver inlays; height: 18,5 cm. Late Pala style in

Tibet, 14th century. One of the Tibetan prototypes, which may have influenced the Ti-

beto-Chinese statues of the Yongle emperor period. - Basel, Museum der Kulturen.

Photo: after Essen/Thingo 1989, no.48.

124 Green Tara. Brass with copper and silver inlays; height: 17,5 cm. Tibet (Gyantse?), ca.

1420/30, influenced by the style of the Tibeto-Chinese Yongle statues. Zürich, Mu-

seum Rietberg (Berti Aschmann Foundation of Tibetan Art). Photo: after Uhlig 1995,

no.94.

125 Green Tara. Slit tapestry (kesi), 43x31 cm. Yuan dynasty period, around 1300. Probably

made in the Anige (Aniko) workshops at Dadu (Beijing). San Francisco, Asian Art Mu-

seum. Photo: after Latter Days of the Law. Images of Chinese Buddhism, 850-1850,

ed. by M.Weidner, Honolulu 1994, plate 5.

126 Densa Thil: upper section of multi-storeyed tashigomang type memorial stupa, the 6th,

7th and 8th storeys, related to the Vajradhâtu and Guhyasamâja mandala, and to the Ka-

gyü lineage. Gilt copper cast and repoussé technique. 14th or 15th century (no more ex-

tant). Photo: Francesco Mele, 1948 (Ethnographic Museum of Zürich University).

127 Kalacakra mandala. Painted scroll. 96x83 cm. Tibet, early 15th century. Lhasa, Tibet

Museum. Photo: after Jinse Baozang 2001, p.56.

196

128 detail of fig. 126 (bottom left). Photo: idem, p.58.

129 White Tara. Brass; height: 13,5 cm. A characteristic image in the Western Tibetan style

from Guge, around 1500. Phiyang (Phyi dbang) monastery, Ladakh. Photo: after

A. Binczik/R. Fischer: Hidden Treasures from Ladakh. München 2002, p.300.

130 Two paintings of a monk. Canvas, ca. 60x20 cm. Tibet, 8th/9th century (radiocarbon-

tested). Private collection, London. Photo: courtesy F.Roncoroni.

131 Butter lamp. Brass; height: 102,5 cm, diameter 102 cm. With six-character inscription Da

Ming Jing tai nian zhi (“produced during the reign period of the Jingtai emperor”). Bei-

jing, between 1450-1457. Private collection, Gouda / Netherlands. Currently on loan at

the World Museum, Rotterdam. Photo: courtesy of the owner.